Cogs in the Machine
by RandomlyDecidedToFic
Summary: A story about everyone's favorite character, Blake Belladonna. Not too long after the Fall of Beacon, and running away from her friends, Blake moves through her life on auto-pilot, taking what she needs to survive in a ruined city, trying to sort out the mess in her mind.
1. First Cycle

First Cycle

A long time ago, there was a philosopher who lived in a barrel near a market. He did this because, as he would probably say, life was just life. Not much remains of his words or ideas, but this philosopher told a story once, and someone happened to write it down:

A man, living in a valley, finds that a boulder rolled off the ridge and into the midst of his crops. The man is both saddened and angry. This boulder flattened his crops and gouged giant ruts into his land. There was nowhere to push the boulder; the land at the bottom of the valley was very narrow, and the man made use of as much of the land as he could: he had his patches for crops, trees that he kept for firewood, and a stream for water. He couldn't push the boulder through these spots without ruining them, and he wanted to fix his crop land. The man decided that he would push the boulder back up the side of the valley, through the rut it carved into his land, minimizing the damage. So, he set to it, pushing the boulder up a very narrow path. If he stopped, the boulder would roll right back down; there was no stopping until he reached the top. The way was rocky, so it shredded the man's sandals, and then bloodied his feet. The path became steeper, and his arms could not be taken back from the boulder, because it would roll backwards and crush him. The birds had at his eyes, eating one of them; he wasn't able to swat them away. It rained, and mud soaked into his wounds. His clothes were torn off by the winds, and he became sick.

He finally pushed the boulder out of the valley, and walked back down. He fell and rolled off the path, breaking an arm, causing the bone to stab through the flesh. He left a smear of red clay as he rolled down, the blood mixing with the dirt. The man crawled back into his home, and saw that several Grimm had made a den inside during his absence. The man ran outside, screaming, and his torso was crushed by the boulder that had rolled back down the hill.

The philosopher really liked telling that story; during the cackles afterwards, people had to step back, otherwise his spit would hit them in the face. Word has it, the philosopher himself was killed by Grimm, and that he didn't care much. There were several paintings of it, one being called "Death is Simply Death." This was a man, after all, who said his last wish after his death was to be left to the beasts.

It was only natural.

\ \ \ / / /

A ray of light from a fractured, dead moon lanced between the curtains on the window, highlighting the frayed edges, small holes and tears throughout the fabric. The moonlight was dissolved by the glow seeping out of a desk lamp that sat among a mess of books and notes, pages of them, all covered in the small, neat handwriting of an over-diligent student, someone who becomes dedicated to a task to the near point of a grim hilarity; maybe even near the point of self harm. This was the kind of person who would forgo meals and sleep, someone with the precision of a team of professional stenographers. It, perhaps, betrayed a feeling of desperation. The desk, at the very least, painted a picture of someone who had dedicated themselves to an idea, something that her studies represented, to an almost pathetic degree. It could have been an attempt to escape the noise in her head. Someone who fell in love with something that could never love her back.

The handwriting on the papers clashed with the mess of the desk; scattering the notes as such seemed an act of deliberate sacrilege. They lay crumpled all over, as if thrown about in either a fit of emotion, or were just dropped down while she was in a state of beyond being careless. There was no order to the pages, and the notebooks that used to house them were severely damaged. The pages had just been let to fall out wherever they happened to. Same went for all the hardcover books, ranging from textbooks, philosophical tomes, to works of fiction, all of them very long. Discarded books on the revolutionary lay open, the text on distribution of wealth, the tyranny of power systems and the rights of workers now declaiming to noone; the pages yellowed, and the words contained within were slowly being buried in dust falling like a light snow flurry.

Books were draped on the inactive radiator, the small, cracked table next to the cooking stove, and a few were piled on the counter near the sink, which was full of dishes. A light mist of fruit flies caught some of the moonlight from a second open window, looking like a buzzing dust devil over the sink.

The bed was free from books but not clothes. They were arranged at random, though they were all clean. Next to them was a shelf that held a reloading tool, some very small vials of Dust, and maybe two hundred rounds of standard ammunition, some pistol caliber or other.

The apartment was one room, but spacious enough, maybe eleven or twelve feet wide, and fifteen long, at least. It felt more like a hotel room; a small "hallway" coming in from the front door, and on the right as you walked in was a tiny bathroom with a stall shower. Frosted glass door, one small bit of non-door frosted glass, shove the whole thing in a corner and you got yourself a ghetto shower. The room smelled wet, like the earth under a rock. The white walls were yellowed, but weren't streaked yet. The vent in the ceiling had spots of black. The girl who lived here didn't think the duct lead to the outside.

The rest of the place smelled distinctly of her. Every bead of sweat that dripped out during sleep floated in the air, remnants of nightmares following her into morning. Performing daily workouts in here didn't help the situation. She had spent hours over the weeks on the hardwood floors, out of breath, body completely drained from one exercise or another.

This girl was now sitting at the desk in her underwear, pushing the books to one side, laying out a cloth with an oil stain on it. She placed her collapsed Gambol Shroud there, and began to play with the slide ejector on the machine pistol. Her eyes were unfocused, and she kept moving the slide back and forth, hands never going near the small container of cleaning oil on her right. She murmured to herself, and a trembling went through her, followed by several deep breaths. Her eyes lit on the oil bottle, but suddenly zeroed in on one of her arms. She held it up, and looked at it in the light of the lamp. She flexed her fingers, one by one, flexed the forearm, the bicep, then back to forearm, and back to her fingers. She cracked her knuckles. She traced the lines of her palm, scrutinized her fingerprints, rubbed the flesh of her forearm, and finally worked the fingers of both hands together, like she was warming them on this hot and humid night. She pitched forward at the waist at this point, but did not fall from her chair, hands still clasped together as such, and began to murmur to herself again, like in prayer. Only the words were fragments, fractured sentences, thoughts that were leaking out in drips when they were meant to be contained within her. This went on for twenty minutes.

She got up stiffly and walked into the bathroom, switching on the light and looking at her face in the mirror, the golden eyes reflected there blank pools in a stone mask. After a moment, she leaned forward and began to move her jaw about, studying the ligaments in her neck, watching how the skin stretched. The murmuring began again, and she closed her eyes and gripped the bathroom sink hard. The crack between the sink and the wall widened some more.

After fifteen minutes of this she took a five minute shower and dressed herself with the clothing on the bed. She left her hair a mess, but still took care to wrap the cat's ears that peeped up through the tangles; she used one of her black ribbons to fasten a bow, and tied another to the Gambol Shroud. The weapon was swaddled in the oily cloth and slid under the bed, but after a shrug, she retrieved it and stuck onto the metal sheet tied to her back. Something reflected in the moonlight on her face, maybe a smile; the girl seemed much more calm now, comforted. Blake wanted to leave through the window instead of the lobby exit, inconvenient as it was, because it meant she got to take the weapon with her; openly violating curfew laws would make the night rougher than it needed to be.

\ \ \ / / /

She stuck to the Thieves' Highway-the tops of the city buildings-for no real reason. Sure, there was a curfew, and this was a good way to dodge it, but practicality wasn't her reason. Thinking on it, there didn't seem to be any reason for doing this. She ran as if being chased, probably causing a racket to anyone inside the buildings she was running on. Her eyes started to dry out from the rush of wind, and then tear. She hated that when it happened; her eyes were open too wide, and she was running too fast. A stitch was forming in her side. Blake needed to slow down, and did; only then it became obvious how hard her breathing was. She'd mindlessly run to beat the devil, and it was still a long night ahead.

Off to the right, stood a massive wall that cut right through the districts of the City of Vale. You could see the very tops of some buildings, and what was left of Ozpin's Tower, but that was about it, even from this height. The citizens had lost their collective minds when the wall had gone up, but the situation encircled in the exclusion zone was still deemed too dangerous. The Kingdom… hell, _Atlas_ was still there, in force! Both of these parties were still repelling and hunting the Grimm inside, claiming that victory was nowhere in sight, but they were still able to build that massive piss-off wall! It was ludicrous... unless you had been there, and seen the actual _hordes_ which poured into the city in the aftermath of the terrorist siege.

The Dragon on the tower could still be seen.

She turned away, and kept on to her meeting with Wolfe.

\ \ \ / / /

The bar where the meet up was supposed to happen was the bar you're not supposed to go to, the one that is in every city in every age, with the same scratched and chipped up tables, stools, walls, teeth, faces, and morals. The bar where when the cops show up, they are always angry and already have their clubs in hand, because everyone on the force knows this particular bar, and _nobody_ wants to deal with it. They only yell "Stop!" after they start hitting you. It's called being a proactive officer… and being the survivor of multiple stab-wounds.

 _That_ bar.

Wolfe was sitting in a corner booth, on the fringe of the light, because when you decide you're going to be creepy, you might as well go all the way. It was respected. Custom, if you will. He was living up to his nickname, "White Dog." The young man had pallid skin, and a last name that was far cooler than he was. Wolfe always wanted to be called "Silver Wolfe," but Blake swore that was a euphemism for an older man looking for a younger woman.

They had argued over that for maybe thirty minutes straight. An agreement was reached to never broach the subject again.

She slid onto the seat across from him, her eyes bored. Wolfe had a goatee and some strong features, a hard line of jaw, good cheekbones, and could be considered handsome, except he was too skinny, his head too boxy, wrinkles were in the corners of his eyes, some gray had snuck into his black beard and hair despite still being in his twenties, his eyes were sunken and kind of small, and his thin lips always seemed to be stretched into a leer. But he didn't smell. He didn't wear cologne, but he didn't smell. Dressed like crap though. Baggy clothes. Easy to get snagged when climbing a fence. And probably not baggy by choice; his thinness didn't seem to be accidental. Still had all his teeth though, until he pointed that leer of his at the wrong person.

The leer dripped off his face when he looked over her shoulder at the hilt of Gambol Shroud. "Belladonna, you… you brought your _piece_ here?"

She shrugged. "My hair covers it."

"No… no it doesn't…"

"From the back it does."

"What the hell is the matta with you?"

Blake leaned forward. "You really wanted me to just show up here unarmed?"

"Yeah!"

She just sort of stared at him for a few minutes.

He stared right back, cocking his head.

Blake asked, "You wanted me to come to _this_ bar, unarmed?"

"It's a restaurant and grill."

"What?"

"Restaurant and grill."

"Those are both the same. That's like calling it a 'grill grill.'"

"No it's not!"

"Yeah, it is _._ Bar and grille, not restaurant and grill."

"The sign outside says restaurant and grill. 'Kök Bloc: Restaurant and grille.'"

"'Kök' doesn't mean either restaurant or grill. This isn't even the Bloc Borough. You misread it."

"No, I didn't."

"Then the sign is wrong."

"You tell 'em that."

"Maybe I will."

A waitress walked over. Wolfe leered at Blake, but then the waitress leaned forward and looked at Wolfe. " _Now,_ are you goin' to order somethin'? You're friend is _fiiinaaaally_ here." She turned and looked Blake up and down. "Wait, she old enough to be in here?"

They both said "Yes," at the same time.

The waitress held out a hand to Blake, "Lemme see."

Wolfe watched with wide eyes as Blake pulled out her Scroll and brought up an ID. The waitress snatched the Scroll out of her hand, plugging it into her own. Both Scrolls beeped back and forth, and she held up the picture to Blake's face. After a few seconds she handed it back to Blake. "24, huh?"

"Yep."

"Well, Miss Yukamoto, can I get you anything?"

"Water."

"Well now, don't go too crazy tonight. Don't want to spend _all_ your money."

"Make it a water with lemon, then."

The waitress narrowed her eyes. Blake shrugged at her.

Wolfe tugged at the waitress's sleeve, asking for a whiskey. He got a, "Uh huh," as a response, and then she stormed off. He started laughing.

"I made her mad enough, don't rub it in by laughing at her, Wolfe. It's not a good idea."

He waved his hand slowly, dismissively. "Holy crap, that fake ID worked."

"What?"

"It worked! Miss Yukamoto!" His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was wiping at them with a dirty napkin. His voice and laughter was a wheeze.

"The… the ID you gave… _sold,_ me, you… didn't know if it was going to work?"

Wolfe just kept his eyes squeezed while he wheezed, and nodded his head up and down.

Blake was just staring at him again until the waitress clomped back over and slammed the drinks down before zipping off. Then Wolfe suddenly quit laughing, leaned forward and sipped at his drink, dropping the leer. Speaking softly, "Well, whaddya want, it kept you off the grid so nobody could contact you while you waited for a way out, so don't look or whine at me like that. Now, you'll wanna listen to this. I gotta job for ya. You know this already… man, stop lookin' at me like that. You wanted to be left alone, and you also wanted money. I'm not an idiot. You can clamber over that wall _and_ you're one of those…," he smiled, "Well, now, I guess I can't do nothin' but speculate you had something to do with that school over there, but regardless what you've done before or whatever is of no concern to me, you can deal with Grimm, fightin' or sneakin', and I know for a _fact_ you were able to grab an apartment with that bogus ID and if you hadn't been able to do it I'd help ya out. A faunus to boot, see in the dark and crap, _very_ useful in this line of work, I'll tell ya, though I gotta say it's really freakin' weird to see someone your age so good at this kinda thing but there I go runnin' my mouth again so forget it, it's not my business and it's better not to pry. But ol' Wolfe isn't gonna just leave you out there, no way, and you can count on that. You see, we _need_ one another, and there's no way I can let a beautiful friendship such as this just fall apart. I don't even care if you have some kind of beef with the White Fang or are scared of 'em, whatever the case may be, and I think you're worth the risk. And you really want that money so you can skip out of this blown out and busted town. So maybe stop starin' at me like that, alright?"

She relaxed her face. Not because she had really relaxed; struggling through the tangle of Wolfe's words was like struggling through quicksand. You just don't do it; just wait for the point to bubble up, and interrupt.

He nodded, thinking that she agreed. "Okay, very good. Now, this job shouldn't be too hard. Just over the wall, not too far in, and back. Well, a little more complicated than that, you bustin' into a mansion of sorts-I think it's a mansion, well somebody lived there-and there might be one or two mercs still in there guardin' the value-ables and whatnot," she _hated_ the way he said valuables, "but it's two probably retired guys collecting a pension sitting in a abandoned house where most of the Grimm are already gone. Like I said, just right over the wall. Client wants a specific necklace back. It's a gift…"

"I don't care." She didn't have the time for this information; knowing less about motivation was the smarter move, anyway.

"No, you _do_ care, because I need to to make sure this looks like a bog-standard robbery with no clear objective except to pick up as much swag as possible. Also, since I pissed that waitress off, notice how she don't come back over here? Got the place to ourselves. Who cares if she spit in it. I can handle bein' sick or whatever. Look at me! What the hell could she even _possibly_ give me! Anyway, now, if I just flat out _told_ you to grab up everything you could, you'd roll your eyes like you are doin' right now and tell me to piss off, because you got this thing about not doing straight-up burglaries or somethin', I dunno what ya deal is, whatever, but, yeah, listen, we need to make sure it isn't all about the necklace, the client was _very_ clear about that. Seriously. You see, she had this son who went and got himself killed the day the Beacon tower got all jacked, and this son married some girl this lady didn't like. Like, before the tower thing. Married her before. A few years ago, I think. I don't read the society section in the newspapers. Son's dead, she wants the necklace back, it's a family heirloom, blah blah. This whole thing has been very much out in the open before, threats of lawsuits and stuff, but now we're bein' called. It's perfect; more and more people are climbing the wall and grabbin' what they can, even the royal family is makin' noise in the newspapers… man, with the communication grid down, newspapers are comin' back. Guess we ain't the only ones comin' up in the world! Anyway. Grab the necklace, and a ton of other crap. That way it doesn't seem like our client hired someone to steal the necklace. Don't kill anyone."

"You seriously going to ask me not to kill anyone? And, can we really trust this woman? This whole thing might blow up in our faces. If the necklace spat is this public…"

"Don't worry about it. I mean, yeah, it's a bit of a gamble, but the money we get out of it is pretty good. You should be able to finally skip town. Probably not by air, but at least by boat or somethin', you know? I'm not too keen on stickin' around myself, Belladonna. Lookin' at the state of things…"

Nothing was said for a few moments, until Blake spoke, "Atlas is not going anywhere soon."

"No. I've been hearin'... and don't get too freaked out, okay? I've been hearin' they're still worried about some element of the Fang stickin' around, gettin' over the wall. Also, the looters that keep gettin' in… it's gonna be a mess for a while. Maybe even years."

"Atlas can't stick around that long."

"I don't know what their plan is. I mean, it's not like we're bein' occupied or anything, but it certainly don't look so good, either. Plus, with communication down, it's not like they have to worry about their worldwide image, either."

"There's no way to keep them supplied for much longer."

"They ain't just gonna pack up and leave. If word got out, it'd look real bad. Nobody likes people who run."

Blake sighed, and kept a shaking hand under the table. "This city isn't anything anymore. It's just an opportunity for the wrong kind of people."

"It wasn't always like this… wow, I'm gettin' worried about the state of things. What does that tell ya? But the Fang got no hold in this place. No matter whatever happened on the TV. Getta hold of yourself, kid. Just get the necklace. You'll make it out."

"I always do. I always just… get away…"

"Yeah, that's the spirit!" Wolfe's smile dripped off his face when he noticed Blake had hunched in on herself. But then her head snapped up, taking him aback.

She asked, "All right, where is the place?"

It was located far from any of her known entry points into the exclusion zone. She was going to have go a long way, sneaking past whatever Grimm nests flanked her path. She already had a map of the known dens of the creatures (though "known" was a very small number of dens), and it even had some now out of date patrol routes for soldiers (better than nothing), but all the markings on the map were clustered around entry points into the EZ, where most people-sensible wall-hoppers, the wall-hoppers who lived to come home-stuck to. Her target was in uncharted territory; you couldn't use a flashlight in the EZ, it could be too easily spotted. If you used it outside on the streets, a fly-by over the zone might catch it, or a night patrol on the ground. Use it inside, and you might have to deal with a crazed squatter or monster. Perhaps plural of those last two. And it was almost even too dark for a faunus; inside the EZ, light seemed to be just sucked up and dissolved. Night vision meant _low-light_ vision; the moon usually helped out with that. But absolute dark? No. The only other times she had seen darkness like that was outside various White Fang camps, and the lonely streets of Mountain Glenn. To see darkness like that so close to home, and enveloping Beacon, unnerved her. It was like it was creeping in on her, following her from her youth, at first stealthily, and now boldly.

She thought about the White Fang masks, how they covered a Faunus's glowing eyes; there was a reflective layer over the photoreceptors in her and any other Faunus's eyes. That's why they glowed, like an animals. And that was one of the reasons for the masks. So they could lurk in the darkness… like a monster...

Inside an EZ building, you saw nothing, and maybe heard breathing-until a monster knew you were there.

Then... everything would get real quiet.

She had taken to sleeping with the lights on back in the apartment. She had explained to her few contacts that it wasn't out of fear; she could spend nights in the EZ, and had, but when she got home, she wanted to swathe herself in luxuries, such as her desk lamp.

This was Vale, now.

Wolfe told her to take notes as she walked. They could sell that info. She wanted to smack him in the head, and this want gave her pause. It wasn't so long ago that violence against another person turned her stomach. It didn't matter how slight the attack was; she just didn't like hitting anyone. This distaste helped her make one of the most important decisions in her life, and now, here she was, thinking about smacking somebody in a moment of petty anger. This anger was strong, for some reason. Control over impulses like this had been part of her earliest martial arts training; with the knowledge of how to wage war, came the control of how to use it when necessary.

She could snap his arm if she wanted to. Cut it right off.

She looked at her own arm and flexed her fingers, with something almost like admiration on her face. The amazing mechanics of flesh, the beauty in its design. And how easily it can be destroyed.

"Belladonna?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't gotta mark every single freakin' thing you come across. I get it, I _get_ it. You are the one takin' all the risks, so I ain't gonna push you too hard on it. Just… keep it in mind, okay?"

"Do you have a lot of debts or something?"

"Wha'?"

She repeated the question.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Always on about the money. More than even a greedy man. And I've dealt with some real greedy people."

"Yeah? Well, I don't really trust the know-how of a nineteen year old. Where is that waitress? Doesn't she see I'm empty ovah here?"

"I protested at those mines, Wolfe. And then some. I've been around."

"Yeah, that's nice. Nobody gives a crap. You think you're special or somethin'? Look around, at everyone in here. Who don't have a story to tell? Besides, no matter how much of tough girl you are, ya still in this room sittin' across from me, surrounded by all these other people.

"There's that culture, what is it… maybe Meangerie, somethin' out there, where they say a photo of you is actually a picture of you in your own room, or your general environs. They call what we here in Vale call a personal photo a 'close-up.' That's it! Our idea of a personal picture, or selfie! Just a close-up, to them. Got into an argument with some guy over this, some guy who wanted me to take a picture of him and his girl. Called my take a close-up! Unbelievable! But he goes on to say that you have to judge a person by everything around them, what they surround themselves with, not just their face. What's that worth? He said he wanted the surrounding area to be the focus; it wasn't just a picture of them, it was a picture of where they decided to take their vacation. _That's_ what was going to define them.

"I've always kept that in the back of my head. It sounded pretty smart.

"And now we got _you_ in here with _me_. And I can't help but think of that picture."

She got up, pushing her hair back to cover Gambol Shroud. Wolfe just laughed at her, but still said, "Take it easy, girl…"

"How much time do we have to get this necklace to the woman?"

"She wants it in two days."

"So I have to go tomorrow. This is nuts…"

Wolfe shrugged, and she turned and left. She felt the stares of several men rolling up and down her back as she walked. Sometimes, and for some things, people don't check your I.D.

\ \ \ / / /

The rest of the night was spent casing the entry she was going to use tomorrow. She stuck to roofs again during her journey, dodging the military police patrols. Violating the curfew was one thing, but doing while armed meant going to the internment camp for a long time; she would be put to work maintaining the wall for the few months it would take for her to be processed by the authorities, and then it was off to the penitentiary, where if her former connections to terrorism were discovered, the world would never hear of Blake Belladonna ever again. There would be nothing her parents could do out in Menagerie; that was too far away to be in the loop with communications out. Did they even know that Beacon had fallen? Nobody in town had any good connections. Weiss wasn't even around, and what the hell could the brat do for her anyway?

No, she fought, Blake had fought, and so had Yang, the three of them together, plus more. Ruby had led a counter attack with some of the others, and then Blake thought about her fight with Adam, and then she refocused on the wall, clearing her mind.

It was a fifty foot climb, but the searchlights were lax here. Two at the very top, and precious few lights along the base. There was the occasional patrol of an armored carrier, headlights splashing up the wall and buildings like breaking waves on a rocky shore, a lone gunner peeping his head out behind a massive machine gun mounted on the top of the vehicle; this man was either the least liked, or the least senior, of the patrol. The night goggles on his head hid his eyes, and made him look alien, a big eyed creature with a twitchy mouth swirling about in a turret like a demented ballet dancer clutching their partner, the long-snouted gun that could split a Grimm in half with sustained fire.

She wasn't going to climb over the wall. Chancing the Chute was the best bet, if it hadn't been closed off yet, or if anything hadn't nested in it, either.

The opening was three feet wide at the base of the wall. A small camouflaged door, covered in debris, that led to a tunnel where the only guidance was a rope. It was a one hundred foot crawl, and there wasn't much air; plus, the Chute didn't go in a straight line. It simply couldn't, because there were foundations, electrical wires, pipes and whatever else under a city's streets. A few holes were poked here and there to let air in, but most of the tunnel ran under the wall itself, which was pretty wide. You couldn't allow yourself to start panicking down in the Chute; you would hyperventilate, and then probably run out of air and die. No one would even know if you passed out in it, at least, not until the next person tried to crawl through and found the body.

Only so many people were allowed to know the Chute existed, and it was smart thinking to let others know you were taking it. It would be a claustrophobic nightmare if one person coming out of the EZ ran into somebody trying to make their way in. Especially if equipment and swag was being hauled. She was one of the privileged few; part of her payment for one excursion into the EZ was being told of the Chute's existence. What a deal.

Speaking of swag, there was no way she could grab too much from the mansion. Three feet wasn't much room to work with; she wouldn't even be able to keep Gambol Shroud on her back. She was going to have to cradle it in her arms again, sort of the same way a soldier cradles their rifle when they drop prone. She had nearly cut her face open one time she used the Chute, when the sword came loose; she had the weapon in her hand, tucked under her, as she crawled forward. A button must have gotten hit or something, because the next thing she knew there was hard steel pressing right on her face, a line of it running down from the corner of her eye to her jaw. She could still remember the metal on her cheekbone, a mix of a strange pressure and pain. She had spent ten minutes pulling the blade away from herself; a sudden move would have ended in a slash up her face.

Another patrol went by, and she stared at the entrance from her viewpoint, hanging from a ledge; Gambol Shroud was anchored into the stone, and she was dangling lazily from the "ribbon" attached to the hilt of the weapon. These patrols never looked up, unless it was straight up the wall. Idiots. Nobody was scaling the wall. Ever. Not one of the entryways into the EZ involved climbing. It was either bribes or sneaking through gates. Nobody was dumb enough to try and climb a sheer vertical face. But the patrols watched it, all the same.

Regardless of this, hanging several stories over the streets while military police patrols arrested anyone violating curfew was not the time or place to suddenly start questioning what you were doing. She was planning on _stealing_. Like a common cat burglar. She chuckled a bit, and her ears twitched. But she couldn't take her mind away from this trail of thought. What _happened?_ A few months ago, it was schoolwork, a tournament… and a serious investigation into the activities of criminals and terrorists… so, okay, it had been not only stressful events, but all around some very strange things for kids to be getting into, but it was the job they had signed up for. If they didn't know how far, or deep, the rabbit hole was going to go in the beginning, they sure did after trying to stop that train in Mountain Glenn.

But… this? She was working with a common criminal. For… what, exactly? What end goal?

This is what she did. She found things, took things, or broke things quietly. That was her job. She was just doing what she did.

What kind of crap was that. She was hanging off a building planning on subverting a military cordon so she could swipe a bunch of swag from innocent people.

She didn't steal from innocent people. She stole from the wealthy. The people who profit off the sweat of others and think nothing of it. She didn't do what most of the other looters had done, which is just take whatever, from wherever, not thinking twice about it. So this wasn't her planning on stealing from innocent people.

Just because they were wealthy didn't mean they were evil.

But power comes from pilfering it from others.

What about Weiss.

What about every single thing the Schnee family had done up to that point.

But… didn't she leave all this behind her? These thoughts, beliefs? To fight for everyone?

Just do the job.

Don't think about it.

It doesn't matter. Just get the money and bail.

Another patrol vehicle trundled by. She felt she had a good idea on how often they passed now. She climbed her way back up the building, and headed to her apartment.

Back home, she pulled off her old and sweaty clothes, found and prepared the clean clothes for the next night, oiled her weapon, looked how little Dust she had, and then collapsed onto her bed above the covers. She lay face first and barely moved throughout the day. She looked dead. There was nothing glamorous or cute about it. One arm was cocked at a strange angle, bent under her. The other was thrown out, fingers touching the end of the bed. Her breath was labored. Her hair frizzed out over her face, strands getting sucked into the open, gasping mouth. She didn't move through any of it. An insect landed on her back, and bit. Nothing from her. The bug flew off, bloated and pregnant with blood, and warmed itself in the sun rays coming through the window. There were no dreams for the girl in the bed.

The sun dropped and rolled off the edge of the horizon, and the broken face of the moon hobbled back out, casting it's pitiful light once again. She was up, stroking at her arm, then staring at herself in the mirror, and finally a quick shower before dressing and grabbing the Gambol Shroud.

"Time to go to work."

Hanging in the same spot as yesterday, waiting for the next patrol vehicle. The instant it passed, she yanked the grapple free, and the ground rushed up at her as if attacking. It was ridiculous to watch this girl land with bent knees, wearing ankle boots, no less. Such was the power of the huntress; though, admittedly, one of the lamer displays of the power, at that.

Darting across the street in half a second, she threw open the hatch to the Chute and flung herself inside the blackness that waited. The door fell back down behind her, and she took to the long crawl through this earthen throat, constantly bumping her head on the moist dirt ceiling. Small particles kept falling into her cat ears. She had forgotten to the tie ribbon around them, and now felt naked, though there was nobody to see her make this crawl into the belly of the beast. The loose dirt made her shudder. All it would take was one rumble, one too many vehicles to go by, one Grimm to leap down from a roof, and this whole tunnel could collapse. Would anyone ever find her? What would her parents think happened to her?

Due to her strength, she could crawl so much faster than most people, but it still was too long to be under the ground. Blake's shoulders would brush past one of the flimsy wooden supports every once in a while, and each time, she would feel both comforted and nervous. These supports _so_ wouldn't last much longer.

This was it. This was the last time she was doing this. Never again. This was idiotic. If she died down here, buried alive and suffocated, it would just destroy the hearts of whatever friends and family she had left. Outside the tunnel, she thought herself alone and unwanted, but once inside, all the people that would be left behind crowded her mind. All the people left to live in a world without her. No. She was never taking the Chute again. This wasn't going to be like the last time she made this promise during her last trip, or the trip before that. This time, she was serious. Never gain. Last trip through the Chute. Period.

Blake pushed up the trap door on the exit, and looked around. Nothing. No soldiers, no drones, not even a Grimm. It made her nervous. It wasn't natural to see city streets completely empty and quiet. There wasn't even any litter. Movies always showed a newspaper or plastic bag blowing by, but in reality, there needed to be people littering for that to happen. When there was no one left, the litter disappeared, too. It was a still as a painting of an empty city… but it was real. She was there. And it didn't feel right.

Feelings were pushed aside; she got out of the Chute and crouched. No point in waiting for an air patrol or drone. She started to make her way towards her goal.

The buildings seemed to lean over her, not one light in their windows; beasts with a thousand dead eyes, titans of a dying planet flanking her path. Scarred, cracked, and burned, broken glass looking like grinning teeth. These were normal sights. What always freaked her was the buildings that didn't look damaged. That was extra wrong to her. A smashed deserted building made sense; a quiet, normal building with no light or noise at all was too messed up. She tried not to focus on them.

Ugh… walking in these shoes hurt.

This always happened; it was never after a big landing or anything, but a few minutes later, maybe after the adrenaline wore off. The pain would go away soon enough; her poor toes, crammed into the front of the ankle boots. You always wear smaller shoes, that _just about_ fit, and tight clothes, when climbing a fence. The last thing you wanted was to get snagged on something, or trip over your big, dumb feet. Why did she have to wear heels, though? That's what kept getting asked to her back in the day, while she was still training. Since then, she's made a habit of keeping them on. Adam had laughed at her. Blake Belladonna was a stubborn little thing. Her parents had said the same. Always willing to do something in spite. Others in the Fang had chided her, saying that she could wear combat boots, or sneakers, hell, even sandals, not clunky heels that would make noise on hardwood. But she didn't make any noise. She could fox-walk in these, make the balls of her feet hit first, then roll the rest of her foot down. She'd make it work. Because she was as stubborn as an ass. A regular mule, all right.

Feet still hurt, though.

Focusing on that helped keep her from constantly staring up at the windows. If she never looked down and away from them, what was ahead wouldn't be seen. It always helped to have something else to think about when doing this. If you paid attention to every little thing, you would go mad. Start seeing Grimm, soldiers, and looters everywhere. But she was all alone. Just what she wanted.

Two Grimm burst out of a building behind her, snarling and biting pieces out of each other. They landed on the back of a car, smashing in the street. She couldn't tell what the beasts were. Probably Beowolves. They rolled into the street, and then squared off circling each other. She kept moving, deciding against hiding. The beasts might not fight for long; Grimm never did. The things could barely heal, so neither would want to get into a real fight. Or maybe they would. Maybe the fear that hung in this place…

Don't think.

Keep moving.

They can smell you.

Half a block away she shot a grapple up into the side of a building, and then swung herself onto a fire escape. It wasn't until she was off the streets that she dared to turn around and see what happened.

Neither of the Grimm were there.

There was a window next to her, a yawning blackness. She tried not to look into it, and kept scanning the roads, the sides of the buildings. Two whole sets of ears weren't picking up anything at all. The Grimm had just vanished, and she didn't want to move until she knew they weren't right behind her.

It wasn't the two Grimm that worried her. It was the fact that they were almost never alone, especially when threatened; swarms of the monsters were lurking in the buildings. The creatures were much smarter than anyone wanted to give them credit for. If the Atlas military flattened the buildings to get rid of the monsters once and for all, Vale would never forgive them. Not anyone of this Kingdom who learned of such vile tactics would approve. People were always banging on the walls of the EZ, begging to salvage their lives, saying they didn't care if they were ripped down and shredded by the horrors within, they were already finished, their entire lives had been blockaded and sequestered away. Outside, they had nothing, and were nothing, on equal footing with the hundreds of homeless refugees that couldn't escape the Kingdom, cut off from their own countries.

The Grimm were swarming in the buildings, and she felt no envy to all the soldier patrols and the few remaining huntsmen that were going building by building, clearing them out. Though, to be honest, the pace was closer to room by room. The enemy advantage wasn't pure numbers-though there were many Grimm-but the fact that the beasts just kept coming from everywhere. And many huntsmen were needed outside the city as well. This is what she told herself everyday when she remembered she wasn't helping out. But what could a kid like her do, anyway. They weren't letting any of the students help, too. There was nothing she could do.

She wanted to wait ten minutes. She didn't like the open window next to her, but she still wanted to wait. If trouble came, she could swing from grapple to grapple and dive into the Chute. It was far too small for any Grimm to fit inside.

She wasn't going to get ten minutes. Somebody must have heard the Grimm, because a gunship with a searchlight flew right over the wall and started scanning the streets. She slipped into the window, gritting her teeth the further and further she had to back away to avoid the now frantic sweeps of the searchlight. It wasn't too long before the window was quite far from her; her back was now pressed against a wall. She slid to a crouch, and saw a doorway with her faunus eyes, but couldn't see much through it. She needed some light, such as from the moon, to really see on the dark, and in here, there was nothing. The strain on her eyes made her feel like she was pushing them out of her head. They were so dry.

One time when she was an elementary school student, she was coming home from a field trip when the bus broke down completely when on a stretch of country road. The lights wouldn't even come on. The driver and teacher worked at the engine in the dark, but were having trouble seeing anything; they were mostly just pretending to be doing something, killing time until another bus arrived to get them. She took to staring out the window, and remembered barely seeing anything in that fairy tale dark, that dark of nightmares. It wasn't just the humans, but the faunus that thrived in civilization, and once they were out, they might as well as been naked. It didn't matter the animal pride they carried in their hearts; those woods she saw as a child were a place that no person was to go, the very reason that the primal fear of darkness stirred in the very soul of every person. And now she was there again, right in this building, like a frightened eight year old, staring into the pitch black maw of the doorway, waiting for a claw to materialize from the darkness and slit her up from her nose to her toes and then drag her into the depths, leaving nothing to be found.

The searchlights passed on, and she ran back out onto the fire escape. There was nothing in the streets or skies. She grappled back down and continued scurrying from doorway to doorway, now only five blocks from the mansion. It took thirty minutes, and it may have aged her thirty years. Every creak, every rustle, anything that could be a moving shadow was studied, and more than once she drew down the sights of her weapon and rested a finger right on the trigger.

"Is this what you really wanted, Adam?"

Was it possible to hate anyone this much, to deliberately inflict this?

She didn't know what to think of him anymore. She didn't even know if she could stop herself from killing him when the time came. Not since she had seen the aftermath of the attack, had calmed down after the battle and really drank it in. It would take something monumental to calm this feeling inside her.

\ \ \ / / /

The target building was three stories tall and had electricity here and there. Whenever a ship or drone would start to get close the lights would dim inside. She had no idea how they knew that even a drone was getting close. Someone on the roof? Maybe, but she couldn't see them.

There was space, wider alleys, between the neighboring buildings and the target, with a fence around the whole thing. The building looked like it could be commercial, offices, and maybe the top floor was for the family to live. That's probably where she wanted to be. She had no schematics on the place.

An entrance near the bottom floor looked all glass, but it was intact. It was crazy. Any Grimm could make it over the fence real easy; the building wasn't fortified to fend off such an attack. But there it was, now glistening in the rain that had started up, without a single pane broken or marked.

There was no way there could be many working cameras, but already, looking down from the top of a building across the street, there had to be at least four people walking around outside, all with some kind of short wave communication; they kept raising something to their faces. So, they were checking in with one another. All four guards had assault weapons. That wouldn't be enough to keep any Grimm back. She scanned the rook again, and thought she saw a very, _very_ long rifle barrel peeking out over the edge. Still not enough to fortify it. Was there a hunter or huntress inside? Someone that was a free agent, that would take any job? She hoped not.

She was on her stomach, and she slid back and played around on her Scroll, filling in some gaps in the map between the Chute and here. There wasn't much to add, outside some Beowolf sightings and a solitary Ursa. Still, if it was a clearish path, that would be worth something. As long as nobody got killed due to her saying it was marginally clear. She slid the Scroll back into a pocket, and rappelled down to street level.

Crouched in an alleyway, she made sure Gambol Shroud was loaded one last time.

"One…"

The rain dripped off her nose. She pushed some hair back behind her ears.

"Two…"

The fastest way to the third floor would be to get up the building and make her way down from the roof.

"Thirteen…"

A slow approach from the first floor might get her more of an idea of what she was up against. The people inside were definitely pros, and probably equipped to see in the dark. And that was assuming not one of them was a faunus by default.

"Twenty-seven…"

Eight more seconds to make up her mind. She had to be over the fence by forty-three, and either all the way up the roof by fifty-two, or crouched in the bush by the service door by forty-eight, and then find a moment to check the lock.

"Thirty-five…"

Roof.

She bolted, running only on her toes. The rain covered up the little ticking noises her feet made on the pavement.

"Thirty-nine…"

Her breath was still calm. Her legs coiled and she jumped. She didn't touch the fence at all, and flipped herself forwards as she jumped. Her face just passed the top of the fence. As she finished the somersault, still horizontal in the air, her eyes scanned the edge of the roof. No rifle barrel in sight.

She landed in a crouch on the other side of the fence, hoping the rain covered up the sound of the landing.

"Forty-two…"

Gambol shroud out. Grapple sharp and sinister looking, a black fang in her hand. Twenty feet to the wall. She didn't feel steady or all the way stable running in this rain. Ran anyway. Balls of her feet. Rain had to cover the sound. _Had_ to.

Snap of her elbow and wrist, grapple slicing the night air and striking the wall. She jumped and yanked, hurling herself into the air.

"Forty-seven…"

Still in the air. She didn't think anyone was below her. Guard was coming around the corner soon. Yanked out the grapple. Threw it again. Stuck in the wall higher up. Yanked again, kicked off the wall.

"Forty-eight…"

She swore she could hear the person beneath her but there was no way shut the hell up and focus you stupid idiot don't screw up now you're who knows how many feet in the air and surrounded by mercs who were just waiting for a fight. Grapple back out of the wall. Thrown again. She couldn't let them see her making it up the wall.

"Fifty…"

Push off the wall, yank, run up the wall a few steps, but it's wet. Left foot slides. Still got airborne. Had to be enough force to get to the roof.

"Fifty-one…"

Not high enough. Hands full with the grapple, so she throws her weapon up onto the roof. Reaches out her fingers.

"Fifty-two…"

She barely catches the ledge, and starts hauling herself up, scrambling, feet kicking the bricks, making a ton of noise. She wants to yell. Idiot! You knew it was raining!

She rolls onto the roof.

"Fifty-five…"

"...heard a noise…"

The voice was close. Too damn close. Someone on the roof with her.

She looked around, and saw the roof-access door. It's set in an angular entryway, looking like a ramp; the top of a stairwell. She slid on her stomach to the side of it, and presses flat, like she was going to will herself through the solid matter of the roof.

Where was the Gambol Shroud.

That was probably what he had heard. Not her. The blade hitting the roof

Where was it where was it where was it where was it where was it where was it where was it

She could see him easily in the low light, a thing that rose up like a goggled monster out of tar, long tube of rifle in his hands, shaking, headed towards the gambol shroud.

"...looks like a snake…"

He didn't know what it was yet.

Humans and their technology. And _she_ was scared of the dark in the EZ.

She had another ribbon tied around her waist. She loosened it, and began to crawl forward.

The guard was pointing his rifle at the shroud, but then realized there was a scope on his gun. A scope that magnified its target by eight times. And his target was only a couple of paces away. He looked at the scope, and then back at the shroud. One hand started to reach for his pistol, but a sudden wind made the ribbon attached to Blake's weapon twitch. The guard put both hands right back on his rifle, which was now starting to shake even harder.

"Yo, Larry!" It was the guard's radio.

He snapped it up, and hissed back, "Shut the hell up, Lou!"

"What's goin' on up there?"

"I think there's a snake up here with me!"

"What?"

"A snake!"

"Don't you be pointin' that rifle at it!"

"Uh… I'm not."

"Larry…"

"I swear I'm not!"

"A bullet from that thing would blow right through the ceiling down here!"

"I'm absolutely not going to shoot a snake with a sniper rifle right now!"

"I know you hate snakes…"

"It's a _really_ big snake, Lou..."

"I don't give a damn! What the hell, Larry!"

"I said I wasn't gonna shoot it with a sniper rifle!"

"Just… kick it off the edge."

"What?! _Hell_ no!"

"Even a sidearm can go through the roof and hit my butt!"

"Yeah, well, that's your fault that your fat ass doesn't do enough PT. Sittin' down there playin' on dating apps on your Scroll while I'm up here…"

"Screw you! You're the idiot who's gonna shoot a little snake with a sniper rifle!"

" _I'm not gonna shoot a snake with a sniper rifle!"_

Silence for a beat.

"Lou… it's a _really_ big snake…"

"Goddamnit, Larry…"

"It could be a Grimm!"

" _What?"_

"It could be a Grimm!"

A sigh. "There aren't any snake Grimm, Larry…"

"Oh, what the _hell_ are you talkin' about! Of course there are! King Taijitu!"

"Are you seriously goin' ta tell me right now that there is a several hundred-foot long storybook snake monster on the roof with ya?"

Another beat of silence.

"It's a seriously big snake, Lou… maybe it's a baby Grimm…"

"How would a tiny snake grow inta somthin' bigger than a friggin' bus, huh?"

The next beat of silence felt even more uncomfortable.

"Am I goin' ta hafta come up there, Larry?"

"No…"

"Are ya sure…?"

"I can do things by myself." Was that a sniffle she just heard? "I am totally fine up here."

Blake stood up and put the ribbon gingerly around Larry's shoulders.

There was an opportunity, and she took it.

Hey, it was a better plan than the first, which was to try and trip him up with the ribbon.

Anyway.

Larry started spinning, making a sound that sounded like, "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!" He had the ribbon in one hand, twirling it over his head like a lasso; he was also jumping up and down. He dropped the sniper rifle, and it fired. Blake's eyes felt scorched in the muzzle flash. The bullet traced off and smashed into a window across the street; the damn thing was so hot from the explosion that you could actually see the glowing slug of metal jumping up and down excitedly in the building over there, ricocheting off the brick walls like a kid after they ate up the whole candy store.

"GODDAMNIT LARRY!"

The radio was displeased.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!"

A part of the ribbon had wrapped around his neck, so his head thrashed about, causing the goggles to slide down his face. Now blind, he reached into his hip holster, and dragged out the pistol while simultaneously squeezing the trigger.

Blake dropped, rolled, and grabbed up the Gambol Shroud. There was a flash of lightning, and looking up, she was able to see Larry fully illuminated, pistol now over his head has he twirled and whipped the ribbon about, firing his gun in the air.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!"

There was some rattling at the roof door, and Blake slipped off to the side of it as two more guards burst out, screaming, "LARRY! FOR GOD'S SAKE!"

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!"

She slipped through the still open door and flew down the stairs as fast as she could. Her feet were slipping on the stairs, but there were more pressing matters.

The door at the bottom of the stairs was not locked, and she thanked every god she could think of. Pushing inside, she saw that the third floor was, in fact, living quarters. She was standing in a dimly lit kitchen that was bigger than her whole apartment. She spied an apple on the counter, and pocketed it. It was hard to get a decent apple, these days.

There were two ways out of the kitchen: one led to a dining room where a man was cleaning his pistol, and the other led to some sort of parlor or living room that was empty at the moment. She watched the man cleaning his pistol for a moment, to see if he was going to get up any time soon, and then pushed into the living room.

The sofas and chairs had been set up originally to entertain guests, but now were all pushed to the sides. In the middle of the room was several thin crates of some sort of military equipment, and a big suitcase-looking thing that must have been a computer; it's glowing screen lit up one of the walls. She looked around, and then strode up to it. One of the men who ran to the roof must have been logged into it, because she was able to see an open window with a map of the EZ, full of all kinds of markings: ways in, ways out, Grimm dens, even where every single jewelry store was . Her eyes went wide, and her hands subconsciously pulled out her Scroll and plugged it into the side of the laptop. She went about downloading the map, and started to frantically paw at the interface, pulling up all kinds of lists and files. A long compilation of names of guards that would look the other way if you wanted to get into the EZ. Even the flight paths for airships and drones. _That's_ how they knew when to dim the lights. Holy _crap._ How did they get all this?

Just who was she messing with? Seriously?

She just started adding more and more into the download queue, not paying attention to what she was grabbing. Names of people in Atlas, emails asking when the EZ was going to be secured and how there was not going to be any pay increases, a list of the guards on duty in the building at the moment, a file on the new "auto-guards" or something, and various situation updates that were locally archived. She opened a few and skimmed them. They spoke of how the targets hadn't been spotted since the first attack, and they weren't expecting to find them at this rate, that the EMP was ready to wipe everything out in case something happened. They had an EMP? Whoa.

The bar was just getting all the way full when she heard people stomping around in the kitchen. She slid underneath one of the couches, closing up her Scroll.

The guards from the roof walked in, and Larry was shaking all over, teeth chattering. He collapsed onto the couch opposite her, and curled up. One of the guards asked what was up with Larry, and he received the reply that Larry hadn't been right since the attack last year; they'd found him underneath an armored vehicle, the rest of his Atlesian Army platoon all killed, torn up by Grimm. This job was the only work he was able to get, because Lou pulled some strings. "He's a hell of a shot, though. Trust me on that. He has his moments, but he's the best we have. Don't tell me about the Grimm bein' around us. You saw what happened to the son… wait, ya saw, right?"

The other guy hadn't, and as Blake was slipping out of the room, into a hallway, she heard that one of "them," (and she didn't hear what the "them," was, or who they were, but probably a Grimm) had just ripped the son right up. Cut in half at the waist, arms, legs a mess, like he'd been drawn and quartered. Blake shut her eyes and pressed on. Awful.

Everyone seemed to be tending to the shivering Larry, because the halls on the third floor were mostly empty. There was the occasional camera, believe it or not. How did they get such serious generators in here? Who they paying?

No, seriously, who were these people.

She found the master bedroom. It was dusty inside, as if the door hadn't been opened in a long time. No one must have been allowed inside. She spied that there was a window she could jump out of, and with a shrug, turned around and locked the door. Sure, they might have a key, more than likely did, but screw it. Her idea was to toss the room. If they tried the door, Blake would have a second to get out the window and figure out if running away or sticking around and fighting was a better idea.

The guards must have been under _strict_ instructions not to sully this room with their boots, because nobody came in while every drawer was torn out, all the clothes were thrown on the floor, the shoes tossed around, and cosmetics brushed off the shelves. The closet was last, and she ripped everything down, knocking on the walls and listening hard until a hollow sound rang out. She pressed one of her cat ears to the wall, and started feeling around near the floor. There. A small button under the rug. When it was stepped on, a part of the wall, maybe a square foot in size, swung out, revealing a combination safe. Her eyes wrinkled, but then relaxed. Blake smiled. Most safes these days made a humming noise, so you couldn't listen to the tumble lock click into place. Putting the cat ear to the door revealed that the safe wasn't getting any power. It was child's play to listen to the lock as the wheel was spun round and round, and finally it was open, and there were three necklaces, several rings, a string of pearls, and even a tiny purse gun with an embroidered barrel. She took everything but the gun, and closed the safe back up.

Looking out the window, she watched the guards patrol the perimeter. She was counting the seconds again, counting their steps. She flung the window open and jumped out, wind in her ears and rain splashing against her smiling face.

She hit the ground outside the fence and rolled; when standing up, a flashlight splashed across her back. Blake just started running, not bothering to look back, and soon she was nothing but a black blur in the rain to them.

\ \ \ / / /

She was shivering uncontrollably when she climbed back in her window. All the goods were stashed on a rooftop; she never kept things like that on her for long, in case the police kicked in her apartment door. They would be grabbed tomorrow, before meeting up with Wolfe.

Except for the Scroll. The risk seemed good enough. After a shower and putting some tea on, she lay on her back, flipping through the information, adding some of it to her own map. She then took the raw files and moved them to a tiny drive. There was no way that Blake was going to hand over all of that information. Especially the information on easy targets to rob.

But the pay would be good if she did.

She sighed and rolled onto her side. One of the first jobs Blake had taken in the EZ was to find a woman's dog. Her late husband had gotten if for her on the first anniversary of their wedding, a little mix breed pup. Blake still remembered how the rain made everything smell outside that coffee shop; it wasn't too different from tonight, actually. She handed the ripped and bloody collar to the woman, who had taken it without a word, and walked away. The woman had disappeared into the crowd, leaving Blake standing there. There was nothing in those kinds of jobs, no elevated sense of morality, and nothing monetary.

But there was no way in hell she was going to give up all that information.

She tossed the scroll away, and fell asleep as the sun was coming up.


	2. Second Cycle

Second Cycle

The moon was out and Blake was up. She looked at the shelf near her bed, sighing. There wasn't much Dust left. She hadn't fired a single shot last night, which was good; two hundred rounds could easily be used up by four or five Grimm. And getting another ribbon was going to be a nightmare. The ones she had now weren't as good as the ones she'd brought from outside Beacon. Man, why did she run so far? It was a crazy journey to here, and this was… used to be, such a sleepy little area. You couldn't get any decent material in this city, even before the battle. Any kind of special webbing, even at one inch wide, must be special ordered. Maybe there was a supplier in the city, but she was doubting it. She was going to have to keep scrounging for second, or more like third-best. All the rationing might have ate up the good material; it wasn't just the civilians who needed supplies. The good webbing could used to make a quick rappelling harness in a pinch. This stuff could probably work, too. She bit at her thumb and wondered if she still remembered how to even make a harness in the field. Probably not, and to be honest, she really didn't need to worry about it. A huntress always had a good landing strategy and great upper-body strength.

"And then will come the day when I need to make my way down a real tall building, or cliff…"

After maybe twenty minutes of trying to tie a emergency harness out of one of her ribbons, Blake went back to staring at her measly two hundred bullets. They were so damn tiny. Gambol Shroud was such a dinky little weapon when compared to any other huntress' tool. She needed more bullets. A lot more.

Blake suddenly perked up and jogged over to her refrigerator, yanking on the door, looking a bit nervous. She stood in the clean, white, unobstructed glow of the interior, her ears drooping lower and lower the longer the door was open. Her shoulders slumped as she shut it, feet dragging on the way back to the bed. Something then caught her eye, and she grabbed up one of her shirts, running a finger over a long tear in the material.

Blake looked over to the bullets one more time, and with a sigh, put the shirt aside and called up Wolfe. After much haggling she inquired about black market ammunition. They talked about where to meet, and Blake suggested this one real good noodle stand, one with good fish. She sat up suddenly, rigid, and said, "I'm not asking you to treat me to dinner. I have _no_ idea where you got that idea. Though… uh… it _is_ a celebration… don't talk to me like that! I'm not some con artist! I can look after myself!" Her stomach growled. She ignored it, and they concluded they would meet up in an abandoned lot in about an hour.

She started to do some push-ups, but collapsed face-first on the floor, the laboured panting competing with a growling stomach as to what was the loudest noise in the room. Her eyes shut against her will, and now she was in a struggle to not fall asleep on the hardwood; there is being tired, and then there are the moments when your body says, "No." It's not just your eyes being heavy, it's them being so dry that you can't keep them open, otherwise they will dry up and crack like old concrete, and the instant you shut them, you feel like you are falling. It doesn't matter if you are lying on the floor, you start to feel like you are going to push through it; you hit the ground but are still falling. Holding up your head is a feat that puts a circus strongman to shame, and you are surprised with the amount of inner hatred you can hold for yourself.

Pushing herself up into a sitting position caused her triceps to bulge, and she was left panting and yawning at the same time, swaying where she sat, hair in her eyes, trying to talk herself into what was going to be the biggest challenge tonight, and that was standing up and dressing herself like a big girl. And then going and fencing a bunch of stolen goods so she could buy bullets and eat a dry pack of granola bars after it was all said and done. Maybe she would treat herself; buy eggs and some noodles so she could pretend she was eating at the noodle stand. The stovetop still had some gas, for now.

There is the moment when you look back at your life, with a smile and a chuckle, and wonder how you had gotten there; how you even managed to survive through all the crap. Blake didn't think she was ever going to get that moment. Life, since she was a preteen, had been nothing but stumbling forward like a drunk trying to win a marathon, someone ill-equipped trying to accomplish a task far above them and that required so much time and preparation. The idea of stopping and just living normally had been treated with all the finesse and care as wiping off a dead bug you had swatted and smeared on yourself. Atlas, the Schnee family, humans in general, were something so stupidly huge and ridiculous that they easily dwarfed the Faunus, the White Fang, and little ol' Blake; failure was not only a possibility but a reality, because anyone who thought they were going to be the ones to finally equalize the playing field were both egotistical and insane. The same was true with being a huntress; the job included a lifetime of perks: great strength, harnessing your Semblance, and glory; but to achieve all that you had to constantly be training, learning, and give up the idea of having an open casket funeral. At some point, you had to talk with your parents, thank them for raising you, and let them know you were probably going to die before you were thirty, so, no, no grandkids. The buck stopped there (no Faunus pun intended). The whole family line had led to this apex, Blake Belladonna.

And then she hadn't died, despite everything that happened to her; she didn't know if it was because she was trying too hard, or not trying hard enough.

Despite the shame of sounding clichéd, she admitted to herself that she didn't know whether to laugh or cry about this.

She got up, stretching and tangling her fingers in her hair, and started toasting a piece of bread by holding it over the open stove flame with a fork. She cut a miniscule piece of butter from the one stick she had bought, stretching over the whole bit of toast. Her knees shook; Blake looked over towards the kitchen table, seemed lost in thought,then plopped right onto the floor with a shrug, "Screw it," and shoved the whole piece of toast in her mouth at once. She felt dirt sticking to her legs, thought about the last time she swept, and realized that she hadn't bothered putting on pyjamas. Blake just sat on the floor in her underwear, trying not to choke on her very dry dinner/breakfast. She felt what must have been little bits of pebble, something her shoes had tracked in, stick right to her butt. Her whole backside felt gritty, now. And this room was so dark. Blake closed her eyes and focused on chewing. This was not the way to die, after everything that happened.

With a growing horror, she realized that she hadn't checked the expiration date on the loaf of bread. This got her to her feet. Good. It was only old by four days. One more day should be fine. She cupped her hand, caught water from the sink with it, and drank until the toast was down. By the time all this was over, she had thirty minutes to shower, dress, and move her butt to the abandoned lot.

"Eh." She slunk off to the bathroom, farting softly.

\ \ \ / / /

She was sitting on the edge of a roof, fifteen minutes late, staring down at the little gravel lot where she was supposed to meet Wolfe. He hadn't showed yet. Yawning and stretching, Blake let her faunus eyes pierce every dark corner, wondering if Wolfe was crouched there, waiting for her. All she saw were weeds clawing their way out of the earth, stretching towards a cold empty sky. This lot was a piece of useless land waiting for somebody to develop it, but chances were it wouldn't for some time. This was a block of cheap housing, and nobody but a budding slum lord would want to build and divide up a project here. A rusted out car sat off to one side, the grill drooping off it like a dirty frown, one headlight sagging, held up only by fraying wires. Three sides of the lot were walled by other buildings, and the one that would have been open to the street was caged in by a chain link fence covered in a ripped up tarp, undulating softly in the breeze like an old flag. There were a few windows facing the lot, but even in the ones lit, nobody could be seen. She envied the people in the light, at home with the wall screens or projectors on, tuning out the nightime world and everything that crawled around in it. Like herself.

And Wolfe, who stepped out a back door leading onto a fire escape about two stories up. He started to clamber down, and Blake winced at the noise he was making. When he was letting himself down the ladder to the ground, she pushed herself off the ledge, smiling at the feeling the whipping wind passing across her body and face, blowing her hair upwards. The smile widened when she thought of what a still photo of her falling would look like: her touching an electric fence, making her hair stand up on end.

The thud Blake made when she hit the ground in a crouch made Wolfe jump upwards, as if the shock of it had thrown him into the air; one child playing a mean see-saw prank on another. It was hard for her not to laugh as he stomped over, hissing, "Are you out of your damn mind?!"

"I didn't make as much noise as you did."

He rubbed his temples. "Just as calm and cool as always, like a freakin' robot."

"Huh?"

"You never emote. _Ever._ A small smile every once in a while, but never anything genuine. It's so damn _creepy._ Do you even know how to emote?"

"What are you talking about…"

"And the same flat voice, as well."

She was generally taken aback. She had emotions. She had a whole bunch coursing through her right now, mixed in with her blood, flowing to every part of her body. What was this silly little man _talking_ about? She was _always_ emoting.

Right?

Yes. She was.

Then why did what he say bother her so much?

Was her being bothered even showing on her face?

All Wolfe was seeing was Blake cock an eyebrow at him. He seriously had never seen her smile genuinely or happily; sly, coy, or sarcastic, yes, but that wasn't how you put people at ease. It was always business with this creepy chick. Man… she didn't even know it, did she? There was no way in hell he was the first person to bring this up with her. She was so, damn… _stoic._ It made his flesh crawl. And she barely talked. Unless you brought up the Faunus. Then she would talk nonstop for maybe five minutes and beyond, unless you stopped her. Like… were there even any other thoughts in her head? For _serious_. Cops acted like this, stoic and with their shoulders pushed back, tall and menacing, cops that were stopping you for a search. But off-duty _they_ went back to actin' like regular Joe Schmos; they didn't keep up their labor off hours.

For a brief moment, he wondered if she kept up that face in bed. It would have been funny if her resting be-ach face didn't freak him out so much. Wolfe remembered thinkin' that Belladonna was pretty damn hot the first time he saw her, but now… fuggedaboutit. She was way too creepy, man. You couldn't pay him to do it. This chick prolly lived in some underground bunker and spent all her time sharpenin' her sword or oilin' her guns. Candlelit dinner with Blake Belladonna: surrounded by guns, talking about labor rights and takin' out the system. What the hell, man. Wolfe had a thing with this college chick a few years ago, back in his early twenties-oh _yeah,_ Blake wasn't even twenty yet, and she acted like this, what the _hell,_ man-this girl that wanted to be a criminal defender, and at points that chick would be all like, "The cops do this, and the cops do that, chuck anyone they damn please in jail like they were wild animals, criminal justice is outta control, and blah, blah _blah,"_ but that girl was somethin' else when she had a few drinks. That girl was _itchin'_ for action, maybe all the pent-up crap during the day in dealin' with the justice system, but Belladonna was so _different_ , what the hell, man. Creepy crap with this ninja chick. It wasn't a Faunus thing, either. His ex-aw, man, what the hell, man, that girl had run off with his dog Bandit, stupid bitch. He had bought the damn thing… _rescued_ it. It wasn't because of the sad way the poor pooch had looked at him in the shelter. No, no, of course it hadn't been. That dog was gonna be a guard dog, man. His ex had spoiled it, made it a happy little fluff ball… what the hell was he thinkin' about? Stupid brain. _This_ is why he didn't do good in school. Not that his father had cared. Ever. Friggin' belt…

Wolfe straightened up, tightening his butt, rubbing his temples even harder.

This made Blake cock her other eyebrow. _Why_ had she ever gotten mixed up with this guy? Well… actually, despite how he had given her pretty creep looks when she first bumped into him, he stopped doing it after they started talking business. Wolfe must have recognized that she was a professional. He at least was able to realize that. She let him continue his mental labours for a few moments, and then spoke, "Whatever. Let's get this over with." She pulled off a bag from her hip, and passed it to him. The bag of swag passed hands quickly, and their hands and fingers lingered for a moment, and then moved thus way and that, and then around and around, palms slapping each other, and Blake surprised herself for the millionth time that she had been able to remember the ridiculous handshake hand-off of Wolfe's.

Wolfe was wearing a jacket, and after they were done with the crazy ritual of hands and fingers, the bag disappeared into it. Wolfe made like he was bending over to tie his shoe. In reality, he had the jacket open a bit, and he was peering into the bag o' swag. " _Whoa,_ Belladonna, you really outdid it this time…"

"It was nothing. I just emptied the safe when the idiots were busy. Easy." Hell _yeah!_ She was the _best_ there was! _Nobody_ in Vale could even come close. Nooope. She was better than most of the slobs in the White Fang, even. And that little uppity Weiss always whined about she was supposed to be the leader of Team RWBY. Pfft. That little girl couldn't do a thing without her precious Dust. Stupid combat skirt. You could never rob a train in that. Ha! Weiss was no master of the universe… mistress, whatever. _Far_ too impractical _._ Blake only just stopped her eyes from rolling.

Wolfe stood back up, "Well, it certainly is gonna look like a robbery. You didn't knock anyone off, right?"

"Why do you always act like I'm a killer?"

"Whaddya… whaddya, huh?"

"You always stress to me not to kill anyone. Do I… seriously look like a killer to you?"

"Well, you certainly look pretty serious to me. I'm kiddin' ya, kiddin' ya!"

"Right…"

"Aw, come on, Belladonna, look up. We got it made from this! We'll be sittin' good for a while! Hell, maybe this is even it, after the Old Bat pays us! Plus the what the swag will fence! I'll hafta wait a bit for the heat to die down, but maybe not. From what you were tellin' me before, these cats…," and then he looked very uncomfortable in the wake of Blake's stare, which seemed sharper than her sword, "these… um, dudes, sounded like they were up to no good in there. What are they gonna do, go to the cops? To Atlas? What's this widow gonna say, 'My illegally placed guards in my home decked out in military hardware are tellin' me my prized necklace got ripped off'? Of _course_ not. We'll be swimmin' in cash real soon, just you watch, you know old Wolfe, always able to make a good deal, 'That Silver Wofle!' that's what they say, 'That ol' Silver Wofle drives a hard bargain, but he brings in the goods!' that's what they say. Come on, smile for once, wudja?"

A sigh floated in the air, and Blake looked at her nails. She looked up, "It's got to be quick. I don't have much in the way of equipment."

An engine revved, a monstrous growl that caused the ground to quake in fear. She didn't even realize how Gambol Shroud got in her hand; the weapon simply appeared there, as far as she knew. More engine roars sounded, and a sudden light stabbed through the torn-up tarp in the fence, a very angry and divine light, with a deafening damnation bellowing from the street. The fence was screaming, metal twisting in agony, looking as if it were being eaten by the emerging engine grills, armored carriers throwing themselves towards to the two dumbstruck fools standing in the lot. Gravel was kicked up by enormous tires and it fled skittering in every direction.

Blake realized something in that moment.

Usually the police would shout some kind of warning by now, to not move, to put your hands up. These guys hadn't

Not good.

She grabbed Wolfe, and started to pull him towards one of the fire escapes, when gunfire started to slam into the ground all around her, the bullets jumping up and down, excitedly ricocheting. Wolfe began cursing, and didn't seem like he was going to stop in the current century. She was mildly impressed by his lung capacity and his knowledge of, frankly speaking, new, inventive, scatalogical, and offensive language. She tuned it out after a few seconds.

Something bounced on the ground, rolled, and without thinking she tossed Wolfe away like a toy; Blake dove in the opposite direction, shielding her eyes. The grenade went off with no flash, and when she stood back up, she was bewildered, and enraged.

 _They were straight up trying to kill them, not stun them with a flash crash_.

The Gambol Shroud became a pistol in her hand. Squinting, she aimed for the headlights, and started zipping back and forth, deploying random Shadows to confuse the enemy.

THIS WAS COSTING HER BULLETS NOW.

IT WAS UNBELIEVABLY UPSETTING.

Oh, and she saw Wolfe getting handcuffed. What? Didn't they just try to kill…?

Keep shooting, idiot.

The lights started to go dim, one at a time, and she heard someone screaming, "A Semblance?! A freakin' SEMBLANCE?!"

More gunfire was being poured into the lot; it was going to become harder to dodge the bullet-hell rain. She pointed herself at a dim spot in the headlights, and began to fling herself forward, Shadow after Shadow being used as a springboard to throw herself into the air, to dive down at the aggressors… who were, what, soldiers? Not police! What the hell?! And not wearing Atlas white… but dark gray and blacks. Vile-looking soldiers, people who certainly looked evil enough to shoot first and ask question never.

The moment seemed to slow down, crawl on all fours, and die. This wild-looking and deadly beauty floating in the air towards a group of men who refused to fire; the Faunus had guessed correctly, there were people on the rooftops, maybe had been hiding there the whole time, and if either the men on the ground or up above opened fire, the friendly fire would tear them to strips. And now the girl smiled; the men on the ground saw that growing slit on her face, and the golden eyes that floated above them. In that moment, she saw how they were geared up, heads, hands and feet poking out of thick body armor, looking like small children bundled up for the cold, except with night vision goggles.

Tch. Basic humans with no known Semblance, and their stupid toys.

Time revivified and charged forward like a storm.

A new Shadow flung Blake down like an angry meteor. She planted both her feet right into one soldiers face, pinning him to the ground. Another jump, another Shadow, and she came down hard on another soldier's back. Again, and again, and again, hammering them to the ground, one at a time, a deranged game of whack-a-mole. But it wasn't going to be fast enough to get them all.

The mystery soldiers threw Wolfe in an armored assault vehicle, and were pulling out in a haze of kicked up dust, and through that dust, more soldiers ran into the fray. The soldiers on the roof were rappelling down as well. How many were there?! This was insane! For two people?! Two little wall-hoppers passing along a swag bag?!

She landed in a knot of the soldiers, flopped herself prone, and then started kicking her legs, getting into a violent spin where only her upper back was on the ground. Shots from the Gambol Shroud started to ring out, and soldier after soldier fell down, clutching at their bulletproof knee pads. The armor was so tough that the pistol caliber bullets zinged in all directions, but she expected it. She only wanted them all down, not torn up.

She was nothing but a tornado of limbs to the soldiers, a wild and unpredictable thing that belched muzzle flashes at random. They ran back, and each started to tear at their belts, one of them trying to be the one to finally stop her.

Throw it.

She wanted them to throw one.

Throw it, you little worms.

 _Do it._

There was a little impact right next to her.

There was a little smile on her face.

Gambol Shroud went out, the ribbon trailing it, one final gunshot propelling it into the ground. She yanked, was flung forward, grabbed by a Shadow, and then thrown back into the air over where the grenade landed.

When it went off, another Shadow threw her again, and the momentum had the soldiers immobilized, staring at her outline against the shattered moon.

The Gambol Shroud went out again, found its mark in a building, and she was now swinging after the assault vehicle carrying Wolfe away from the fight like a tweaked-out chimp with a horrifying look on its face.

SHE NEEDED TO SAVE HIM. SHE NEEDED THAT MONEY.

SHE WAS OUT OF BULLETS.

 _ **VERY ANGRY NOW.**_

The wind cut at her face; her eyes were watering and streaking from the force. It was right there!

NOW!

She threw out Gambol Shroud, and then missed the assault vehicle by under an inch. She needed to have one more bullet, but the vehicle was too fast.

That armored carrier wasn't regulation. _At all._ Those things weren't supposed to go that fast; there was too much weight for it to stop at that speed, too much momentum. Atlas had knowingly limited their own engines because of that. It _looked_ like an Atlas vehicle, and the soldiers kind of looked Atlas… but they weren't. They weren't the same as the mercs, either.

Who was she messing with _now?_

The street was a long straightaway, and the carrier zoomed off. With no more speed, she landed and rolled to a crouch in the street.

And then heard the other vehicles zooming behind her.

 _Looking to crush her._

 _Smear a new red median in the street with her._

Her stomach growled. God… goddamnit.

She punched her gut, and using the grapple, pulled herself up the nearest building.

She flirted with the idea of running down the Thieves' Highway, but the sudden buzzing of drones made her ram open a rooftop door and plunge down the stairs. Her ribbon must have started to come loose during the crazy swinging down the street, because an end of it was trailing off her head, which now was yanked back, something tugging on her. She wrenched herself forwards, and the ribbon pulled free. She didn't even bother to turn and see if it had been a person that had grabbed it, and not the loose nail sticking off the stairwell railing. She didn't even realize that she had ripped a gash on her hand on the same nail… or the blood trail on the floor.

Below, the soldiers were kicking in the front door, and _now_ there were loudspeakers blaring for Blake to put her hands up, as well as telling the people who lived in there that a dangerous person, maybe a terrorist, was hiding inside.

Some people stuck their heads out in their hall, and started to pull them back in when they saw a Faunus running down towards them, with what looked like a weapon stuck to her back. Blake was trying to keep her breath low and run at full speed; her lungs felt like they were being squeezed. They wanted to stretch, she could actually _feel them wanting to stretch,_ it felt so gross, and her vision was now getting dizzy. She saw an open door, and using her bleeding hand, grabbed onto the door jamb and swung herself inside.

She ran smack into a young man, who fell backwards. He kept his hands up on his head, securing the beanie hat he was wearing. He started to say something, but his eyes seemed to get stuck on her face, maybe not on her face, she couldn't tell. He got up and she drew the weapon, but he put a finger to his lips, and sidestepped her and shut the door. "They'll be up here any minute. Quick!"

"What…?" So tired.

"Keep your voice down!" He motioned her to follow, but then saw her bleeding hand. He swore, and grabbed a towel. Blake stared at the blood, confused. He asked her how long had she been bleeding like that, and she just shrugged. He wrapped the towel tight, and then dragged her to the bedroom. Blake was confused by this, especially when he started pushing her towards the bed, but finally, she understood what he was saying, "What in the _hell_ is wrong with you?! Get under it! _Get under it!"_ She obeyed, her vision swimming a bit, feeling a hammer heartbeat not just in her chest, but her throat, jaw, and the tips of her bloody fingers. She could actually feel the veins in her hand pulsing heavily, spitting blood through the tear in her skin. The thought made her sick. This was also the most obvious hiding spot in whole apartment, but it was too late now.

The man flung open one of his windows and ran out of the bedroom. Blake tried not to think about the veins in her hand. Slowly, she felt a presence in the back of her mind, and this presence felt like herself, weird as that was, and she wanted to know who this guy was. She seemed to think it wasn't a big cut on her hand, but since she had been running so hard, her heart had pumped a lot of blood right out. You could tell by how bright it was. Oxygenated. Very much so. Oh, crap, how hard was she breathing? Not very hard.

Why was this guy helping her, again?

The front door being smashed in made her mind go blank. Her cat ears twisted towards the noise.

There, a few voices were getting closer, and she heard the man say, "Said she'd kill me… I'm not an accomplice, right…?"

"Shuddup." The voice was brusque, heavy.

He was selling her out. For what? Money? Her weapon was in her hand, and she felt something horrible rising from her guts. It wasn't fear. It wasn't anger; something more than anger. Something animal, primal. Something that had no word. Something that felt like it was forcing its way up her throat; the only way to get it to stop was to go at everyone.

Why was she feeling this?

The thought gave her pause. She was going to kill them? Wait… she was going to _what?_ _Why?!_

She saw their feet patter in quickly, like a trot. "In here…!" He was whispering, and he reached out, yanking open a bedroom closet before throwing himself to the ground, hands covering his head.

The soldiers surged in, screaming for Blake to freeze, hands up, stop resisting, put the weapon down, don't move, don't do anything stupid, and on, and on. She watched their feet in front of the door, and winced at the roar of their voices.

After a while, they all quieted down, and started to look at each other. Then they all looked at the man, and somebody pulled him to his feet, screaming, "What the hell is this?!"

"I dunno, man, I saw her go in there…!"

"Oh yeah?!"

"I swear, man, I swear! You saw the blood trail! She came in here, and said she would kill me…!"

She poked her Scroll out from under the bed. The camera was up, and she was able to focus on one of the patches on the soldiers' uniforms. She captured the image, two spears crossed over Beowolf's snarling face. She never had seen that emblem before in her whole life. Was that even Atlas? She pulled the Scroll back quickly.

Another soldier started to walk towards something, saying, "The window, bro."

The soldier holding the man said, "What?!"

"The window, bro, the window."

"Aw, crap…"

The man suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, what the hell! My Scroll is missing! And my Gamestation!" He was released, and he ran off towards a entertainment unit. "She freakin' ripped me off, man! What the hell!"

The soldiers were talking about getting back outside, to search the roofs, but the man grabbed one of their elbows, "Wait, you'll get my Gamestation back, right?"

The soldier threw him to the ground, and the squad ran out, barking over their radios.

A few minutes went by, and then the man started laughing. He got up, shut the window, walked to the front door, and shut what was left of it. Coming back in, he sat down on the bed, and said, "Okay, they're gone now."

She slid out and stood, suddenly very dizzy. He guided her over to the bed and sat her down, telling her to take it easy. He unwrapped her hand, clicked his tongue, and went to the bathroom to get some first aid. As he came back in with bandages and disinfectant, he said, "You know what's funny? Somebody actually did break in here and rip off my Gamestation a little while ago. And I had grabbed that thing from Beacon, too. Bummer. Heh. My Scroll is still in my pocket, though."

While he was working on her hand, she became herself again, and asked, "Why did you help me?"

He laughed. "I bet you wanted to _kill_ me, eh?"

She tried to laugh. "Oh, _yeah,_ you really… uh, had me there."

"Nothin' to it. I'd do anything for one of us."

"What?"

"Oh… the hat. Yeah." He pulled off the hat, showing his own cat ears. He smiled, and said, "Been hiding out in plain clothes for a bit now. I didn't know there was action goin' on, but then again, you Vale guys haven't been too talkative to us Anima guys. Glass dagger in action, right?"

It was a major effort to get her eyes to go back from wide to normal. "Ah… yeah, well… that's what happens when we have to split up." Glass dagger. Oh… oh god.

"Yeah, this crackdown on the Fang is screwin' everything up. But they can't beat us!" He laughed. "They'll never beat the Fang!" And now, he was looking at her very seriously. Somewhat offended, even. "What's the action? What is the Vale Fang up to, and why aren't they talking to us?"

"It's… uh… complicated…"

"Look, just because I ditched the uniform doesn't mean I, or anyone else from Anima, is _out,_ okay? Besides, where's _your_ mask? This is just messed up. There's still so many of us waiting! What the hell, why isn't… what's his name…"

"Adam… Taurus…"

"Yeah, what the hell is his problem? Where is he? Wait! Don't… don't actually tell me that. Not that'd I'd talk if I got caught! But… hey, wait!"

She walked over and crouched in the window. "You want orders? Get your damn mask back first. Mine was broken tonight, not tossed aside. Adam has already… _let go_ of people who dropped their colors."

"But, I'm incognito…!"

"Things are moving. You'll hear from us in a few days."

"Yes, ma'am! I'll be ready! You can count on it!"

"Good."

She didn't slow her pace as she ran home. She couldn't stop wondering why everyone thought she looked like a killer.

\ \ \ / / /

He had his hands out flat on the table, holding up his body, which felt heavier with each passing day. He swore he could feel his heart beating slower and slower.

What heart.

He didn't have the heart to keep the people in Vale in line. He didn't have the heart to fence them in like they had. But he still went and did it. So, it looked like he had a heart after all, and it might not be a kind one.

He didn't have the heart to look his men in the eye, right now. And a mechanical heart wasn't human, not real. It didn't even have a real pulse; it always followed strict algorithms, beating to prefab rhythms; it wasn't faltering. It was steady. But he still felt that flesh and blood of his, despite it being removed during the life-saving cyberization way back when. This ghost flesh from long ago still felt as if it were getting sluggish, turning necrotic, each passing day that his armada kept the citizens of Vale trapped behind the walls.

Ironwood looked up. He felt his pistol at his side, a block of ice chilling what little organic blood he had left. A captain, a lieutenant, a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, and two desk sergeants were in the room with him; a group of boys, in short, save for one of the desk sergeants, who had seen enough crap in his life, and wasn't even bothering to watch what was going on, taking his time with some kind of paperwork instead, creasing the growing wrinkles on his face.  
He was probably working on the casualty report for the month that was to be delivered back home via snail mail. At least it went monthly now. Not weekly, anymore. Or daily.

The young lieutenant-probably twenty-two, twenty-three-stood in the middle of the tent, under one of the two hanging electric lamps. The rest-save the one desk sergeant-formed a semicircle around him, standing casually, not even at ease.

Not the lieutenant though. Ironwood had him at parade rest. When he had given the order, the lieutenant hadn't seemed to have heard him at first; the kid just kept standing there with his thumbs down the nonexistent seams of his cammies and armor, head up, feet squared, ready to receive ten Ironwoods, and maybe a king or two as well. The kid finally relaxed after Ironwood repeated himself for the third time.

Ironwood had his back to all of them. He was pretending to be poring over the map. They all knew he was pretending, but that wasn't stopping him. Everyone was high-strung. Two squads, half the platoon. After all this time guarding and clearing the EZ. Two whole squads.

Ironwood turned and faced the lieutenant, who almost went right back into attention. Ironwood studied the boy's face. The kid bore him no mind, content to stare straight ahead.

Ironwood sighed. "At ease."

The kid kept looking right ahead.

He walked around the kid in a slow lap, and stopped off at his side. He studied the boy's jaw. "You took the building?"

The lieutenant looked around for a second, eyes a little wet, and then pointed forward again. "We secured the perimeter, sir, and, well, you know, we had to set up and search the area."

"You took the building."

The lieutenant said nothing.

Ironwood picked up his hands, and then let them fall. The slapped the sides of his legs limply. "Ok. You called it in beforehand?"

"TOC said dig in and search, sir."

"They did?"

"Yessir."

A colonel stepped forward. "General, we have transcripts of all contact for every patrol, we can pull it up, sir. But, if memory serves, that was the order from tactical."

Ironwood's face said nothing. "Thank you colonel, for letting me know that we follow procedure."

The colonel swallowed hard, and the workings of his brow betrayed the fact that he didn't know whether or not he should say, "You're welcome, General."

Ironwood put his back to the colonel and addressed the lieutenant. "Well, lieutenant, what happened? The building isn't there anymore."

"There was a charge… some mortars left around, too..."

"A what?"

"A charge, sir. Placed…," and now his eyes were fully wet and he pointed them at Ironwood. "There are still some Fang in the city, but not many. I don't know when it was laid, it could have been months ago. It doesn't… matter!" The lieutenant gestured towards the wall of the EZ. "The last thing the world saw before the Great Blackout was our… _us,_ shooting at everyone! And now, we gotta go in there and do everything to set it right, to prove we haven't lost our minds, all the way to bury the bodies of these damn… animal terrorists! These non-humans! And we let the local press see it! So we can seem _nice!_ And the animals know this and they laugh at us, because they destroy our cities and we respond by… _burying..._ their dead! So they strap charges…"

"That's enough, son…"

"... and strap vests to them so when _my_ men are told to get then ready for transport…!"

Ironwood grabbed the lieutenant's shoulder hard. " _I said that's enough!"_

The soldier quieted immediately, but his mouth was still working. What he wanted to say was beyond words. He was still moving his mouth when Ironwood dismissed everyone. They began to protest that no decision was reached, but Ironwood didn't care. He stood in the tent for a while, alone, looking lost, before slowly leaving himself, heading towards his makeshift office on the temp base. The older desk sergeant plowed right through the tent entrance, getting right back to his work, as Ironwood walked away.

The spotlights made him feel naked; they hurled light at the ground, broke it on Ironwoods already buckled back as he headed towards the old Dust store that had been repurposed for the officers and the visiting General. He hated these forward op bases; they were placed in lots, streets, and buildings that were once part of the EZ, and now made up the Cordon. People built their lives in these areas before the Atlas military had taken them over. Shops, homes… they had a sniper/spotter team up in the minaret down the street, in the church.

The razor wire lounged in a lazy coil, glinting in the harsh light, lightly rustling in the breeze along the tops of the fences that lined the perimeter. He tried to not look at the Wall. A guard on patrol kept fidgeting with the green reflective belts on his armor, muttering about how stupid they were. There was the crack of gunfire, and nobody cared; as long as the air didn't snap, it was fine, the bullets weren't coming for you. It hadn't even woken anyone who was sleeping in the "barracks," the appropriated grocery store that still smelled a little like rotting flesh; Ironwood remembered his first inspection of this FOB, during its construction, the men carrying huge wheelbarrows full of brown fruit and black meats, so rank that the crows just watched and gagged, and the flies snarled jubilantly as they hovered over the poor soldiers and their fetid cargo, a squirming orgy of maggots buried within it. High drag, low speed; some of the men became dehydrated from all the vomiting. At least there wasn't a poo pond, like on the other side of town. Ironwood made a note to look into either fixing the plumbing or just shutting that place down. Screw that base. Seriously.

He walked into the Dust shop, and was relieved to find it empty. Most of the officers might be sleeping above. He paced, looking at all the store shelves that had been pushed against the walls to make way for all the desks, maps, and other furniture of tactical significance.

Blake was hanging upside down, watching him, the grapple stuck in the ceiling. "Psst…"

Ironwood stopped pacing, his back to her. It was all one motion. A spin, a quick draw, and Blake was now staring down the wrong end of Ironwood's gun.

She raised a hand. "Hello."

Ironwood cocked his head, raised an eyebrow, pointed the pistol at the ceiling, scratched his head with the barrel, suddenly looked at the gun, looked surprised, and hastily put it back in its holster. He blinked, slowly understanding who he was looking at; the young huntress-in-training looked spindly, emaciated, with very large circles under her eyes. He snapped rod-straight and rigid, hands behind his back, asking, "Can I ask what you are doing here?"

Blake let herself down from the ceiling and pulled out the Gambol Shroud, but before she could speak, Ironwood cleared his throat, and pointed upwards. She followed his finger, at the gash in the ceiling. "Oh… um… sorry about that."

Ironwood rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't remember your name, but you were part of team RWBY, correct? With Weiss Schnee?"

"And Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long."

"I don't remember your name because you never seemed to talk and were always being… elusive."

"Blake, Bell…"

"Belladonna, that's it. Well, what is it?"

"I need a favor."

"You never volunteered to fight the Grimm. I know you fought in the Battle of Beacon, but you didn't volunteer afterwards."

"...students weren't allowed…"

"But they still tried to enlist."

Nothing.

"And now you want a favor from me. What have you been doing, Ms. Belladonna?"

"I've been doing what I need to do."

"No need for that kind of look. What exactly have you been doing?"

"I already said."

"Are you sneaking into the exclusion zone?"

"No."

"Are you sure? I've been hearing rumors, even when travelling back and forth, about someone who sounds a lot like you."

"I haven't. Not unless I sleepwalk."

"Wait… I'm not going to ask how a huntress got in here, but I will ask have you been following me all night?" He thought his stomach was going to drop through the floor.

She put up her hands, "No, I've been waiting for you in here. I didn't overhear anything secret. But somebody has."

"What do you mean?"

She produced her Scroll. "Look at this. Look at these routes. _Your patrols."_

"What the hell…?!" and then a sudden clearing of his throat.

"It's okay, General. I'm a big girl now. You can swear."

"Shut up." Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. Ironwood bent over the Scroll he took from her hands. "Where did you get this intel?"

"I happen to know it came from a group of mercs inside the EZ."

His face was blank but full of implication.

Blake shrugged. "I came across it, and then a _different_ group of mercs suddenly showed up and straight up tried to kill me. At least, I _think_ it's a different group. I don't think it's a coincidence. They-neither group-were dressed like the guys outside this office. Or nearly as friendly."

"You want to trade for this."

"I have no choice but to play hard-to-get. Look, I'm sorry, but I will tell you were the mercs were-I honestly have no idea if they are still there-and give you everything I have if you just tell me who _these_ guys are." She pried the Scroll back from him and pulled up the picture of the emblem with the Beowolf head. "I've _never_ seen this be… General?"

He had taken a step back, looking towards the ceiling, starting to laugh. "You're screwed. Oh my God, you're screwed."

"Thanks for the pep talk. I feel the patriotism just bubbling within me, out all my pores."

"That unit is barely legal and barely unclassified. It's like an open secret… or sewer. So, you're not so well off. Sorry, but, well… come clean. Please, for your own sake. What have you been doing?"

"Summer reading. And enjoying my right to privacy as a citizen."

"You're playing with your life."

"Life's too short to stay bored."

"That is the unit that got in trouble for its interrogation techniques."

She shut up.

"I only have clue as to where they are. So, I guess it's a fair trade. You don't know if the mercenaries are still out there? I only have a basic idea where Deep Six is. And if I got people together to head out there, chances are they are piped into our comms. They would know I was putting something together, destroy the site and disappear. But, when it comes to you…"

"Oh, joy. In the news, huh… for interrogation?"

"Yes."

"Um… why are they called…"

"They never leave a trace. They never get caught. They are almost always disavowed. Once you join, you're already dead. You're one of them, now."

"They wrecked an entire city street coming after me. Not very clandestine."

"They would just look like soldiers to people out here. In a situation like this, they can roam pretty free. I would probably hear about it in… wait, when did this happen?"

"...like, five days ago. I've been scanning the news, and…"

"Nothing. No? Ah! That drug raid I heard about, then, the one that no one knows who ordered it. I call one person, they say that someone else ordered it, and then I keep calling, getting passed around, and the fourth person I talk to says they heard _I_ ordered it… the Six hide inside the lines. Use our our system of communication against us, hide in the bureaucracy. They aren't completely hidden, we always learn about it, but way after the fact. Very frustrating. They aren't ninjas; they're still just soldiers, but very good soldiers. When they try to smash and grab like this, they make their move and fly off before the dust clears. Clumsy, but still very effective."

"Oh, great…"

"How did you get away?"

"I don't think they knew I had a Semblance."

"Really?"

"They seemed pretty vocal about that."

"I see." He walked over to one of the maps and beckoned her over.

Blake pushed her hair out of the way as she leaned over the table. "Why is a group like that even here?"

"Don't be coy. I know you've heard Sienna Kahn's 'glass dagger' speech. 'You'll never be able to stop us. We are everywhere, and we all are unified by our great goals. No matter where our brothers and sisters stand, they will all work towards our glorious victory. We will be as a shattered glass dagger in humanity's side…"

"Calm down, I knew what you were on about at 'glass dagger.' You didn't have to get visceral with the reference."

"That speech haunts me. The conviction in her eyes… and to think there are rumors that some of the White Fang reckon her too soft."

Blake had no comment.

"Deep Six is rumored to be hidden around here, hunting down Fang. The base has to be a building with a basement…"

"That's located in the EZ."

"Perceptive."

"Are they that well-equipped to survive out there?"

"What did they come at you with?"

She went into detail… leaving out the fact that she was delivering stolen goods, as well as Wolfe's name. It was merely a meeting that was quasi-illegal, depending on how you looked at it. "But they only a few troop carriers…"

"That might be enough for them to run ops, then again, don't think for a second they would throw everything at two people. I think their armor is way too bulky, but you said they didn't know you had a Semblance. They probably thought you were average, or Undiscovered. They wouldn't need to move fast then, only be bulletproof, encircle, and move in. It doesn't matter. They won't be as careless on their own turf."

"They aren't from around here, and we're talking about a base in the EZ…"

"Trust me when I say this: they made it their own turf."

They talked for some more, and as she pointed out where the mercenaries were, Ironwood was struggling to keep his composure. She was younger than even the lieutenant. If she died out there, he would probably never know. Neither would her parents. Should he try to send a messenger to them? What would he even say?

He thought about what would happen if he didn't try to figure out what Deep Six was up to. They had run a raid in the middle of a civilian zone, against someone who was a huntress. Unacceptable. That was like taking a flamethrower to moths. By what she had told him, it was amazing that nobody innocent had been killed. He studied the gaunt girl as she traced her fingers on the map. She was so _thin._ Had she been eating?

What had happened to this city? He still barely understood. Qrow had said next to nothing before he disappeared. Ironwood didn't know if he hated Ozpin or not, the way he was using _children_. But how much better of a person was he when compared to the headmaster, when he was both sending this girl to an almost certain death and then had to decide what to do with the lieutenant? The _hate_ in that boy's eyes… what would he think of the girl in this room? There was just so much goddamn hatred flowing freely around...

Where was the _choice_ in any of this? Wasn't that what they were fighting for, ultimately? From the Great War, all the way until now? The freedom to do what they wanted, for people to live their lives as they saw fit? But now everything was shrouded in necessity, draped in instinct.

Ironwood's body had been torn into pieces so the next generation would be free; and here stood that next generation, weapon stuck to her back, now politely asking Ironwood for ammunition.

"What caliber do you need?"

Gods have mercy on them all, and may the children forgive them.


	3. Third Cycle

Third Cycle

She was eating her fifth MRE for the day. Ironwood seemed unable to take no for an answer; when she was leaving the base yesterday, he had piled supplies onto her, said that she looked a little hungry. She'd barely been able to carry them all out, and Ironwood even walked her to one of the entry points to the F.O.B to let her leave. This confused her, and still did, as she shoved two candy bars into her mouth at once. There was only two MREs left out of the ten she was given. And, what was the deal with him messing with her Scroll? She couldn't _believe_ that the Atlesian military was somehow actively scanning the GPS systems of all the Scrolls, to see who was hopping into the EZ; Ironwood said he would take the Scroll to a tech so she would be masked when going after Deep Six. Blake was so pissed when she learned this, that when the geeky comms soldier started talking about finding weird programs on her Scroll it went in one ear and out the other. She only barely caught that there was now a secure line between Ironwood and herself.

She belched loudly, seemed not to notice, and dropped the wrappers off the rooftop ledge she was sitting on. Ugh, why did she feel so _bloated_ all of a sudden? Whatever. Time to focus.

Ironwood said to call when things were getting bad, and he would scramble a team to head out there as soon as possible. If things went sour, hopefully she could call him, and the orders given to raid the Six would be leaked, causing them to panic and just leave. Hopefully, she and Wolfe would just have to worry about the Grimm, then.

She checked the time, dropped off the building, and started to slink towards the Wall. There was a checkpoint, with a few bored looking guards. As she crossed the street, she kept glancing around, making sure there was no one to witness her walking up to the checkpoint, especially passing patrols. Ironwood didn't want his favor becoming well known.

After wondering how she was going to approach, she ended up walking right up to them.

The checkpoint was actually built into the Wall, a small opening just tall enough for a truck and only wide enough for one vehicle, where there was booth, like at a highway toll; a tent was off to the side, still out of the EZ, but in the checkpoint. It didn't look like it was able to properly detain anyone, but when things were this dire you were probably better off not thinking about it and just using what was available. Some razor wire and concrete blocks jutted out from the Wall, making the whole checkpoint a little rectangle. A generator hummed, powering the two tall lamp posts that were equipped with four high powered lights apiece. Some of the light landed on a small area to the side that was set up with picnic tables, probably taken from the city-seeing as they were made out of wood-two portable toilets (one that seemed occupied by someone who was grunting), a jeep parked to the side, a girl checking out her own gun, another guy on his Scroll, and Blake, who was now standing in the middle of all this, taking in her surroundings in a rather uninterested way, while saying to herself, "There is no way in hell they haven't noticed me yet…"

The guy who was on his Scroll dropped it, and he picked it up while swearing, inspecting the device for damage. The guy in the booth yawned, leaned back, and put his night vision goggles over his eyes. The girl who had been checking her gun was now looking at the sky, saying, "Damnit, what was her name. Asul? Cyan? Teal? Teal is a lame name. That would be a last name. Maybe she told me her last name. Wasn't there some weird kid from high school who's name was…? Never mind."

"My name's Blake."

The guard waved her off. "That wasn't it. Girl gives me her number, and I gotta call her back and I don't know what to call her WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?! ON THE GROUND! ONNNN THE GROUUUND!"

She sighed, and tilted her head so the guard's rifle wasn't poking her on the nose. "I'm the person Ironwood said was coming by tonight?"

"STOP RESISTING!"

A voice came from the portable toilet. "Gods, I said I'd be out in a minute! I'm almost done! I know the other one smells bad, but come on, it's there!"

The guard with the goggles was snoring.

Blake had her hands up. "Um…"

"YOU ARE VIOLATING THE CURFEW AS WELL AS TRESPASSING ON MILITARY GROUNDS! FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN… IT'S, BAD! YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KEEP QUIET! I THINK! I AM NOT A LAWYER!"

"Do you have a commanding officer I could talk to? Supervisor of some sorts? Just, anyone else in general?" This guard had very red and sleep deprived eyes. She also seemed like she was, at most, two or three years older than Blake. This girl had acne, for crying out loud.

"MA'AM, I NEED YOU TO COMPLY…!"

"I am nowhere _near_ old enough for you to be calling me _ma'am…"_

"I WILL NEED YOU TO FOLLOW ME TO THE DETENTION AREA! DO NOT TRY ANYTHING!"

They walked over and into the tent.

"THIS IS THE DETENTION AREA! YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT HERE! YOU ARE OFFICIALLY DETAINED!"

"Your lung capacity is quite amazing, but if you keep yelling like that I think you're going to pass out."

Another soldier walked into the tent, "Hey, Greg says there's yelling. What's going on in here?" It was the guy who was in the toilet.

"Sir! This woman was trespassing!"

The guy looked hard at Blake's face. "Do I know you?"

"Did you get a picture of me from higher up? Like, even from General Ironwood?"

"Oh yeaaaaaah. Hold on." He pulled out his Scroll, brought up a picture of Blake, and then said, "Okay. You're the girl. Cool. Be careful in there."

"That's it?"

"Yeah." He turned to leave.

Blake had her head tilted at a very confused angle. "Aren't… aren't you going to ask me the password?"

The guy turned and looked at her with a cocked eyebrow. "I forgot it. That spy crap is stupid, anyway. Besides, I have your picture." He walked out of the tent with a slow wave. "Don't be so uptight!"

Blake massaged her temples while leaving the tent.

The girl who detained her said, "Best of luck on your mission, ma'am!" and saluted.

\ \ \ / / /

This place was _deep._ Blake-and _nobody_ else, as far as she knew-had gone this far into the EZ. Not even the updated maps were helping her out much. Ironwood speculated that where he was sending her wasn't so much a base but a suspected secret prison. By "secret prison," he had meant that some crude cages had probably been built in a basement. The Deep Six weren't really keen on being state-of-the-art, but more-to-the-point. Rumors existed that some of the Fang were still holding out inside and out the EZ, and Blake even saw evidence of this herself last week, so this was most likely what the Six's business was. They would abduct you, and drag you out here and start to ask you questions. Their definition of "ask" was pretty different from the rest of the world's. Blake remembered other rumors about strikebreakers back in Atlas, how some were possibly alumni of a super-secret military force, or, _used_ to be secret; Atlas never confirmed or denied that Deep Six existed, hence Ironwood saying they were "barely classified." An open secret. And if it was the same military force, that would mean some of these guys weren't above opening fire on striking workers. And they weren't even capable of pretending to be sorry on the news when the story broke and were interviewed. "They were armed, you weren't there, you people can't play backseat general when our lives are on the line…"

Yeah, people with signs. Such danger.

Her simultaneous anger and trepidation was making it hard to concentrate on her surroundings. She was going to become as bad as the guards at the checkpoint passed. How long were their shifts? Man. They could barely hold it together.

Watch for trip-wires, idiot.

She focused her eyes back on the streets. Blake hadn't heard a single Grimm for far too long. She held suspicions that the Deep Six might have laid out booby traps. No evidence of this, of course. And that's what made her worried. That's what was convincing her that something had to be there. She also was worried about her increasing paranoia. Her ears were twitching under the ribbon.

The moon was putting out a lot of light, and the gray hue it cast made her feel like she was walking on it; this is where the majority of the damage during the Battle was. The terrain would change from normal street to alien landscape; a former home, now a place where nothing but jagged and jutting pieces of wall stuck out from a pile of rubble like a sea urchin. Burned husks of a building, leaving nothing but the chimneys, reminding her of those giant ant colony towers that dotted the Menagerie desert. Some streets were clogged with cars, everyone trying to drive away at once, and now they were all filled with scattered brown skeletons, hanging out the smashed windows, littering the road like the forgotten playthings of a child with no wont to care. She put her eyes back to the street, looking for traps. Every moment she didn't look up at the top of a blasted out building, she was certain there was a sniper sighting on her. She would tell herself there was nothing there, but the feeling would grow and grow, until she would finally snap her head up. Nothing. When continuing forward with her head back down, Blake was certain that the sniper had only just ducked down, and now was aiming at her again.

It was maybe two or three miles of this, and the journey took two and a half hours. She could run a mile in just under four minutes, but not tonight. Long parts of the journey were on her stomach, crawling forward with her ears pointing in every direction; there was the occasional mad dash of maybe twenty feet across an area where there was no shadow, and those twenty feet felt like they lasted twenty minutes.

A few times she forced herself to stop, sat in a doorway or the mouth of an alley, drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them, and took deep breaths. She knew this journey was going to be in her dreams for a while. Nothing would happen in them, and that's what would get to her. It was the waiting for something to happen; that's what made it a nightmare. This happened sometimes: you finished your business in the EZ, but you picked up again when you shut your eyes at home. Endless quiet streets, short sprints punctuating hours of waiting or crawling. She didn't want to dream anymore. There was nothing in it for her. She just wanted to shut off, see nothing but black for hours. That would have made her the happiest girl in the world. But it wasn't going to happen, which she seemed to have begrudgingly accepted; she no longer despaired, but simply thought of it as part of her life, like being hungry and tired. She would drink tea and stay up sometimes, thinking on what else she would give up as she got older.

Finally, a half an hour later, she lay on a building top and looked down at a two floor bookstore. She'd never been to this one before, never once bought a book from it back before. Huh. Great. She had no idea what was going on in there, then.

Unlike the building the mercs had been guarding, this store might have schematics up for the public to see. She lay on her back, playing with her Scroll for nearly an hour. The sun coming up might become a factor, now. But she found some blueprints of the building, and set about drawing all over them, little marks where she thought guards would be, good places to check for prisoners.

The large basement repository was a good bet. The small front area was the main display and store, with an open staircase leading up to more merchandise. The rear of the store looked like a hallway that looped around in a U-shape, with little doors branching off into other rooms. Offices or something, probably. Maybe places where they handled shipping out orders. None of this crap mattered, so she put the Scroll away.

She cased the outside of the building some more. Bookshelves were thrown all over the place. The Six must have cleared out the basement. Not good. According to the blueprints, there was only two ways down there: one, through a door on the first floor, and two, a small elevator for carrying up heavy loads into the main store area. No, this couldn't be right. The had to make deliveries in somehow. If there was an elevator for heavy loads, that meant they probably got big deliveries. Probably in the back.

She silently grappled down to street level, walked away for several blocks, and then climbed a different building for a better angle. It took her a few tries, but she was able to see there was in fact a service entrance in a little cleared parking lot, but there was a ton of guards around it. Not that she could see them all that well; they seemed to be hiding like in ambush, twenty-four seven, around little sandbags and rubble piles. She knew there were more than the seven she could spot on the perimeter, and she wasn't able to see anyone on the roof. It seemed that the Sixes made the delivery zone into a quick depository for their prisoners. No dice. She was going to have to find another way.

The worst part about all this was she couldn't detect a single Grimm. She had no doubts that the Deep Six were pretty good at dispatching them. Grimm never leave a body, always disintegrating, so it was impossible to tell how good they were at it.

Or was it?

In the past few weeks, when she had glimpsed this current kind of smile in the mirror, it frightened her.

There weren't any mirrors for miles.

\ \ \ / / /

There were two guards on the perimeter of the Deep Six camp, crouched in the parking lot, about twenty feet apart from one another.

"That girl last night."

"Don't say it."

"She was lookin' at me."

"She didn't talk to you."

"I think she was tryin' to get to me through you. And then you blocked me."

"We talked almost the whole night, and you didn't come up once."

"What the hell were you two talkin' about, anyway."

"Do you really wanna know?"

"You don't have anything to talk about but your stupid cartoons."

"We talked about _Lucky Sakura."_

"You're full of crap."

"I'm serious."

"A dancer talked to you about that stupid cartoon bull crap. "

"She knows how to do the dance. She had an armband and everything."

"Bull crap."

"She'd never talk to you, being that you don't have a taste for 'cartoons.'"

"She'd never go with ya."

"Yeah?"

"Hell yeah. Why'd you two talk so much?"

"If you gotta know, it's because she hadn't met such a nice guy who she could talk to about that stuff."

"In a dancer club. What a nice guy."

"Your idea to go."

"And your legs followed me in. Well, dude, I bet you she'd never go with ya. She was just gonna make you a friend."

"Pfft."

"She just wanted to nerd out. But nobody in their right mind sticks with a nerd."

"What century are you from?"

"This one. Nothing is less attractive than a dude who can't cook their own meals."

"I cook better than you, piss off with that."

"Putting eggs in a microwave noodle bowl and claiming it's as good as a noodle stand doesn't count. Now, _that's_ just pathetic."

"Damnit."

"What?"

"I don't remember her name. She had blue hair… Asul? Cyan? Teal?"

"Teal is a lame name."

"It's probably her last name."

"Why in the hell would a dancer give you her last name? Besides, they all have names like Sapphire, or Ruby."

"Ruby would fit with Rose, and this chick has blue hair."

"Ruby Rose does sound like a dancer name, though."

"...Yeah, but isn't there an actress with that name?"

"In, what, explicitly type…"

"No. No. You dumbass. In real movies."

"Oh. In none I've seen."

There was a faint sound on the air, like little pops.

"Somebody shooting out there?"

"Sounds like. Tiny gun, whatever it is."

"The hell are they thinking, coming in this deep with a gun so small?"

"Maybe it's that girl."

"She _really_ liked Lucky Sakura, but not that much, dude."

"Not _that_ girl, dumbass. And a girl won't date an idiot. I'm talking about..."

"Does it sound like a bunch of sharp things scratching concrete to you? And what, the Faunus girl?"

"One question at a time, man… first, that's a weird sound you're tryin' to describe…"

"But that's what it sounds like to me. See? It's getting louder…"

"Cripes, I'm not done trying to answer you yet."

"...well?"

"Well what."

"You stopped talking there."

"Yep."

"Are you going to finish your thought?"

"Nah."

"You're just trying to annoy me now because I interrupted you. No answer? You know what? Fine. I'll just _keep_ talking, and we'll see who annoys who first. So, yeah, I wonder if it's that chick we are tracking. I mean, we lost her signal coming from the Scroll, but we know where she lives. It will be a real pain breaking her out of that area and not having Ironwood's goons get their underwear in a bunch, but it's just a matter of time. Unless she comes out here, which would be pretty dumb. Say, that noise is getting louder. Like, _real_ loud. You gonna call that in? Damn! That is pistol gunfire! It's close, too! Aw man, it sounds like a damn stampede is heading our way! I'm calling this in. Glad you agree. Hey, LT, we're out on… yeah, even you hear it? I think it's headed right for us... Affirmative."

The camp was so preoccupied they didn't notice a frantic Blake swing out of the darkness then land and slide under one of the armored vehicles. She reloaded her gun, and waited for the madness to break out.

She didn't think there was _this_ many Grimm out there. Or that so many would follow just one girl.

The guards around the camp were busy playing around with the barrel of their rifles. Blake squinted at the guard closest to her, watching him remove something from his belt, a weird, twisting, cone-shaped thing; it reminded her of a cone of ice cream, the chocolate and vanilla swirl ones you get at a stand-except with a hole at the top, and colored entirely black. It was very long, almost two feet, and despite the hole at the top, the object still looked kind of sharp; the base was very thick, and the end was almost a point. Everyone on the base was screwing these things onto the barrels of their rifles, and they looked very unwieldy. What were they? Suppressor cans? Weird ones? She snorted. The guns would still make a lot of noise, so maybe Atlas would notice.

There was a rumbling, and scooting over and looking up, she saw that a few heavy machine guns had been wheeled to different windows in the building, and they all sported the strange ice-cream tips. Okay, now that was ridiculous… no way they were suppressors. Not on heavy machine guns.

The thing about silencers is they aren't really _silencers,_ per say. Everyone has heard this explanation by this point; nobody likes to hear that one smarmy person talk about how a suppressor can more diverts the sound and hides the flash, making it hard to pinpoint where shots were coming from. Nothing can silence a gunshot; it's an explosion, for crying out loud. No pun intended.

And, oh, yeah, by the way, look at that; it appeared like they had heavy machine guns. Awesome.

The first few of the stampede of Grimm rounded a corner, and began to book it towards Blake. Wow, those beasts know how to track. The ground was shaking with the pounding of their feet. A few poked their heads over roof ledges, ready to pounce into the camp. It wasn't just Beowolves. She had seen a few Ursa as well, and who knew what else.

One of the soldiers on the perimeter lazily raised his hand, and when the Grimm got very close,dropped it just as haphazardly.

It sounded like one hundred moody librarians flipping quickly through books. There wasn't a single muzzle flash, just light tracers of bullets tearing through the darkness and into the stampede. These were _actual_ silencers; the guns barely made any noise. This shouldn't have even been _possible._ Hell, it wasn't possible; physics said it couldn't be done. She wasn't going to start an argument with the barrel of a gun, however.

The first few rows of Grimm simply stopped moving their legs and rolled forward end over end; they hadn't even gotten out a yelp of pain. They also didn't look like they were holding together too well.

More Grimm climbed over them, but dropped down immediately after. Grimm leaped off the buildings, but the force of the gunfire stopped them in mid-air, causing the beasts to fall straight down and splat.

A small wall of dead Grimm was building up. More of the monsters were trying to climb it, but the first dead were already dissolving, causing the structure to be very unstable. It swayed back and forth, and finally tipped forward, spilling the monsters onto each other in a tumble. The Grimm that were being shot out of the sky plopped right on top of them.

It only lasted one minute and thirty seconds, and they were all dead at the end of it. The bodies all began to evaporate, and one of the guards on the perimeter yawned.

"Hey, Skeeter."

"What?"

"You think that stupid girl led them all here?"

"... that's a thought. Radio that in, and let's search the area."

"On it."

Awwww _what the hell?!_

This was friggin' bull crap!

Where the hell was she going to go? This was just an empty lot behind the building that led to a delivery door. She was lying under a vehicle, they were going to check here first. She thought about bolting out, but realised they might kill Wolfe the instant they thought they were found out.

She could surrender. Let them grab her. Let them get close. If they thought she was caught and not a threat, then there would be no reason to run in and kill Wolfe.

That might not work, either. Sure, Blake was strong, but she only weighed so much. If they dog piled her, it could get bad.

Two men at once were peering under the vehicles. Others were walking around, watching.

She sighed, and stepped out from under the truck with her hands up. They saw her right away, and surrounded her. They all started barking orders at once, and she just nodded, going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah…" while casually reaching a hand back for her weapon.

"DON'T!"

"KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY!"

"Just tryin' to help you guys out."

"WE WILL DO IT!"

"HANDS AWAY!"

"ON YOUR KNEES, HANDS ON THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD!"

"COMPLY!"

She complied, one of her pinkies lingering near her cat ears. Then, the other, stroking the fabric that wrapped them, ever so lightly, making sure it was there.

One of the soldiers walked up behind her and started to run his hands all over her. She snarled, and he told her to shut up. He found the Gambol, pulled it off her back, and pushed her forward so she would land face first on the ground.

That's when the guy noticed the girl had cat ears, which he could have sworn was a bow a second ago, but said bow now seemed to be wrapped around his arm.

Blake was very slight when compared to a grown man, yes, but Aura works weird. Some people say we really don't know how it works. It does make you stronger, though.

Strong enough to swing a grown man around like a mace or flail, for instance.

The soldiers didn't quite know how to react to this. It was about the most absurd thing they had seen in their careers. There was Guy, one of the older guys in the unit, and he was tied to a long ribbon which was being held with two hands by a very skinny goth-esque cat girl who was spinning herself around in circles so fast that poor Guy was completely horizontal with his feet kicking, apparently too confused to even scream, and the cat girl was making her way towards the rest of the squad.

It was pretty stupid looking.

Blake started bowling over the soldiers one by one, using the guard she tied to the ribbon, and who _now_ was screaming, and the noise he was making was pretty strange to an outside observer of all this: it was kind of like when you watch a race track, the whine of the cars getting loud then soft, loud then soft as they passed you by. Hypnotic.

Men were flying through the air from the force of the blows. On guard hit the ground and his weapon started going off, lighting up the side of the building and one carrier. Blake finally let the ribbon go, still spinning in circles for a minute as she tried to keep her balance and figure out where she was. Guy slammed through a window, and Blake marveled at the comical sounds he made as he bounced of whatever was in th

She swallowed.

That guy had Gambol Shroud.

She ran at the window, swerving back and forth as her equilibrium tried to come back, arms swaying like two separate pendulums attached to her shoulders, though her eyes were eerily focused through all the mayhem. A shot rang out, a sniper from above, and she started deploying Shadow after Shadow to confuse them; she left a trail of swaying copies, looking like a conga line of Ska dancers in her wake.

It confused the sniper in more ways than one.

Blake flopped over the windowsill, smashing through whatever glass was left. The room seemed to be some sort of office with no cubicles, but plenty of desks. A poster on the wall told her to never give up. It had a frog on it. How high on life did you have to be to land a job making posters like that. You can only look at that kind of crap sober; if you aren't, you'll end up spending maybe the better part of an hour talking to yourself, wondering if the person who made the poster went to school for graphics design and marketing, _years_ of schooling, to make a frog tell you to never give up. You start to wonder who messed up more with their life, you, standing there rocking back and forth almost as if in prayer, drooling, or the person who made that poster. You wonder if they are proud of the job they've done. You certainly aren't proud of yourself, but you didn't make a goddamn frog poster, so there's that, I guess.

The guard got up and was now wielding Gambol Shroud with a shaking hand, and he lurched at her drunkenly, waving the sheathed sword back and forth, saying that failure to comply, crap he's gonna puke, don't laugh at me, comply or I'll stab you, oh gods my stomach is squeezing.

They both walked a janky jaunt across the office space towards one another. Every so often, one would swear because they banged into a desk. Guy took a slow swing when he was close enough, and Blake pulled the sheath off the blade as he did. Guy looked at the sword, very lost, and only barely blocked Blake's badly aimed strike. They both flailed at each other for a few moments, slowly gaining their balance back. Sparks began to show in both their eyes, but their footwork was still sloppy. Neither had their sea legs on the solid earth. Blake was reminded of the many, _many_ viral videos that existed, the ones where two kids pretended to sword fight. Please, nobody film this.

Guy went for a lunging stab, and she caught the blade in the sheath. Blake was genuinely shocked she pulled that off, and twisted the sheathed weapon, yanking it out of the guard's grasp. She pushed him back, and then gave him a roundhouse that sent the soldier careening into his comrade who had just come through the door. The two men smacked into the hallway wall, trying to push each other apart. She staggered into the thin hallway trying to step past the two, when another man rounded the corner only a foot away, drawing a bead on her. Shrugging, she grabbed the silencer attached to the barrel of his rifle, and pulled him over her outstretched leg. He tripped, and the thin silencer poked through the strap on the other guard's rifle, entangling them, while Guy was still trying to free himself. Down the far end of the hallway, the opposite side, another guard saw them all, and sprinted to get a better shot so he wouldn't hit his friends, but his silencer jutted out and hit an open door jamb, causing him to clothesline himself onto the ground.

This gave her an idea.

She started kicking the three tangled guards towards the fourth, and before they all tripped, she grabbed the fourth guard by the arm, picked him up, and threaded his silencer through the third guard's gun strap.

So there was four of them now, writhing and squirming and swearing as she kicked them up and down the hallways, looking for the basement entrance. Several guards popped out around her, and she mounted the blob of soldiers, using them as a shield as she would drop off, grab a new guard's gun, and add them to the tangle. She kicked them up and down over and over, adding more to her collection.

She had eight of them all wrapped up in each other by the time she found a locked door with a basement access sign. She threw them into it, smashing it off the hinges, the guards following it down the stairs. Some plaster violently exploded next to her head; she never heard the shots. Blake dove down the stairway, landing supine on the wad of men. She did a handspring off them and landed in the middle of the basement, in front of a set of cells crudely cobbled together out of brick and metal doors with small slots in them, four or five in all. Wolfe's eyes were pressed against one of these slots. She kicked the door, which caused him to fall back on his butt, and she slashed at the locks and door knob until they fell away and the door swung open.

"Belladonna?"

"Wolfe!"

"...Rescue?"

"Yeah!"

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"Whoa!"

"Yeah!"

"More coming?"

"Right behind me!"

"Door to surface there!"

"Okay!"

"Lead?"

"Get behind!"

"Snipers?"

"Shut up!"

"...mmmkay."

While he was getting up, she called Ironwood, yelling that the Six were here, send anyone, even a damn chaplain, just put the friggin' orders through so the Six would hear them. She shot at the storm doors which led out of the basement and then kicked them open, sending Wolfe out first as she sprayed the roof and windows of the building with bullets, trying to suppress anyone aiming at them. Her second magazine had fire Dust laced on every other bullet, and she set parts of the building aflame as she ran and caught up with Wolfe, who was screaming down the street in ecstacy while he making rude gestures with his fingers over his back and towards the building, hair caught in the wind and sticking up.

Some of the soldiers shot at them from the building, some were putting out the fire, and others were screaming that the Atlesian military was on its way, they needed to pull out _now._

\ \ \ / / /

"We still got money."

"What?"

They were eating old bread Blake pilfered from a hot dog stand. She didn't want to try to take anything more valuable. Despite the fact that the hot dog guy was a jerk. They walked while they ate, towards nowhere in particular, making sure they stayed in the light. She didn't want to go home right away. Wolfe didn't want to go to his home. She was debating asking Ironwood for help when Wolfe interrupted her thoughts.

"We still got money. Maybe. When you were pullin' your stuff on those soldier guys…"

"That was the Deep Six."

"Nevah heard of 'em. Whatever. When you was pullin' your stuff on the… uh… Deep boys, whatever, I tossed the bag, but kept the necklace on me. I figured they wanted the necklace… and other stuff. That if I gave up something, they would think that's all we stole. The bag should still be in that lot."

"If nobody took it."

"Look, we both need a reason to live right now, don't piss on my parade. Let's go."

They took their time getting over to the lot where they were ambushed, and what the hell, the bag was there, and it was empty. Whoever ripped it off dropped one of the rings, which was better than nothing. "That'll get us eats at least."

"It better. Let's head back to my place, 'dog.'"

"What?!"

"I just got a message the Six skipped town. I think we're safe."

"How?!"

"You have you're contacts, I have mine. You near here? No? Screw it, let's stick together for now. I think my place might be under protection. Yours won't be. Come on."

\ \ \ / / /

Wolfe ended up shooting down the idea of staying at Blake's. He wanted to collect some old debts, stuff that he never bothered to collect, and this idea of temporary forgiveness puzzled her. He explained that sometimes you let a debt ride, because it bought you favors instead, like right now. You grease the wheels, keep the machinery going, instead of going around causing friction.

A buddy of his had skipped town and still had his rent paid up for the month, so they could crash there. Blake broke into her own apartment and sneaked out some Dust, ribbons, and clothes. Wolfe scored some cash off old loans, and was getting ready to set up a quick fence for the ring. Blake pestered him about bullets; Ironwood hadn't been able to spare much. Wolfe said he would get a meeting going, but she said she was going with him. "Look at you. You're a pushover right now. They'll knock you over the head and run off with the money."

"I know these guys…"

"And I know this type. We had run-ins before the Fall. I'm your bodyguard. It would be stupid to go alone."

"You can't bring a weapon."

"That's crazy."

"I'm serious."

"I'll bet they have back-up."

"You really need that much ammo?"

"Yeah, and if I buy this much in the store we'll get flagged. No choice here."

"Ugh… don't do anything stupid. Let's just focus on getting to the hideout."

"Where is this place?"

"It's in a good neighborhood." He said some street names.

"No, it's not."

"It's fine. Trust me, trust me! We're gold."

The sun was coming up at this point, so they were getting swept up in the early morning rush of commuters. They had a few lien left on their subway cards; the stream of early birds floated them into the terminal. There wasn't much talking, there never was in a subway, but somehow there is always a hum of noise, some of it voices. Everyone was bleary and gray, sucking down coffee and tea while it was still burning hot, finishing it before they got onto the platform; after that, their possessions were held in a death grip. Blake was hugging a (clean) garbage bag full of her belongings. It was right then the blood in Wolfe's ears was noticed; nothing could be done, the red crust was going to have to be dug out later. She wondered what they did to him. He hadn't allowed a broach of the subject. The train screamed into the station, a deafening carriage being pulled by invisible and tortured horses, and Blake almost dropped her bag trying to block all four of her ears.

They sat together on a bench, the train rocking back and forth, playing the usual game that people do on the subway, which was to not make eye contact with anyone and don't look like you are watching the cityscape out the window. People were holding their Scrolls with two hands, and keeping them in their laps. Almost no one talked.

Wolfe leaned over. "See, things aren't so bad in this part of the city anymore. We're fiiiiine."

"Uh-huh."

The door at the far end of the car opened, and a man staggered in. His head was lowered, but his eyes were still looking at the people in the car. One of his hands held a paper cup that was brown around the rim. He wore an old, ragged brown coat over a dark green shirt that had dirt spots on it. His hair was spiked put like he had been struck by lighting not too long ago, and there were gray streaks in it. His beard also was going gray. His eyes were small and nervous, slotted into a tanned and lathered face. He had tan pants that were wrinkled, and the right leg terminated just above the knee; a mechanical prosthetic leg poked out, longer than his left leg by maybe an inch. Around his neck, hanging by a short, red ribbon, was a brand new trumpet.

More and more people were watching him out the corner of their eyes, but after a while, everyone, including Blake and Wolfe, turned towards the old homeless man, pondering him, wonder creeping up their faces. The man drew himself up, his chest out and his eyes closed, now radiating a dignity that spread through the car like warmth. A few people's mouths were open.

The homeless man, without looking, picked up the trumpet with one hand, and brought the instrument to his lips. He drew a breath.

It was indescribable. The man put everything he had into his music, body trembling with the effort. The sound was unique, and haunting, something that would stick with the awestruck passengers for some to come.

The trumpet went, "Blrrrrp!"

Everyone looked away and tried to be busy with whatever was handy.

"Blrrrrp!"

With his other hand, the man started rattling the cup that held maybe two coins… or more likely two rusted washers, so it would seem like people had given him money before and not been bitten after.

"Blrrrrp!"

His fingers wiggled a bit on the button pistons.

"Blrrrrp blrrrrp!"

He started walking down the aisle, holding the cup out to people who cringed. Nobody even faked a smile.

"Blrrrrp!"

He shuffled down the car, receiving no coins.

He turned back to the car when he reached the other end, letting everyone savor the smell he emitted.

"Blrrrrp blrrrrp, blrrrrrrrrrp!"

He made a rude gesture and walked out of the car.

Wolfe tried to avoid Blake's glare. A silence became bloated and pregnant over the both of them, slowly inflating to an extreme.

"You think he makes any money doing that, going through every car?"

"If he keeps at it, he might at some point."

"Or get the crap kicked out of him and hauled to jail."

"I guess it's all he's got, though."

"... I don't like thinking of it that way… being… being, stuck, like that…"

The next stop was the one; if they missed, they'd have to wait for the end of the circuit, and ride all the way back around.

\ \ \ / / /

Wolfe was in far worse shape than expected. It looked like there was some kind of burns around his wrists and ankles. She almost made him strip to his underwear to inspect him, but pulled herself back; whatever happened, she could tell Wolfe didn't want to think about it, acknowledge those five days. It didn't matter if the wounds near his extremities looked like they were maybe infected. She didn't know if the marks were from him struggling against bonds or being electrocuted. Maybe both. She knew there were ways to hurt people without making a mark, if they cared to not leave evidence.

Why would they care about either of them.

Gods.

She let it lie. Out of the corner of her eye, the man would shake and hug himself until she turned back around.

It took two hours to convince Wolfe that him as a reference would be good enough for the buy. She heard him while she was in the shower (Wolfe didn't remove a stitch of clothing with her anywhere _near,_ giving her first dibs) talking to the seller, something about cloves, alcoves, it was hard to pick up. She took a long shower, letting him alone, though the door was open a crack. She spent the time listening real hard for any noise he made. She knew he wasn't going to peep. There was no mood at all for that. The two of them were on a survival trip in their minds, and the idea would never have crossed either one; she didn't know if he was going to break down. Blake had seen that look before, watching someone curl up on themselves after something like this. It's why he was talking business so much, trying to be proactive. His interaction with the world was all surface level; the man was buried in himself, and it was becoming more apparent as time went on. It was something she could feel in him. She wondered how bad his shakes would get.

There was brief moment when she realised she knew what he was going through because she herself got the shakes about every night. She crushed this thought, and it was replaced by her wondering how she was going to hide her own shakes. She swallowed this thought down, too, and focused on the buy.

This was probably why they both started babbling to each other at length about their next move when she walked out dressed. It had to be the Old Bat. Yeah, that made sense, kind of, because they, the Deep Six, wanted the necklace, right? Wolfe had told her they shook him down specifically for that when they got to the camp. And who the hell was the Old Bat?

"I've been askin' around, because the guy who walked up to me with the job seemed weird, so, I spread some lien, asked some favors, turned some old ones in, and that's how I figured out he was workin' as a go-between for another guy, who is a bodyguard, and this bodyguard works for Sophia Verdeman."

"As in Verdeman Electronics Group? VEG?"

"... are you freakin' serious? VEG? Like… meat and veg?"

Yes, she was freakin' serious, that same Verdeman, and then Wolfe made himself stop chuckling and asked who the hell that was, so Blake sat down hard on the floor tailor style and said that company has a lot of contracts with Atlas. That's probably why they… _she,_ the Old Bat, had pull with the military, but to pull a group like Deep Six? "That's a hell of a pull. That's… that's completely insane, actually. What the… how did she do that? And _why?_ For _us?_ For a damn necklace?"

"What did you do with that data. Oh sh… where is it?!"

"What? Whoa, whoa! Calm down…!"

"Gimme your damn Scroll! Aw, hell, damnit, damnit, damnit!"

"Back off! Back off, now! I can break your fingers!"

"Look… look, it's serious, where is it."

"In my damn pocket, you psycho."

"Get rid of it. Now. Please…"

"Wolfe… hey, sit down. Sit… look, what's up?"

"They wanted that Scroll… how do you think they found us?"

"Oh, god… wait, that's what that Atlas techie was talking about."

"What?"

"Nevermind. I… I said it already, we each have contacts. Somebody already scrubbed my Scroll. Was it the data?"

"They kept askin' me… over and over… how much we knew about it."

"About what?"

"I don't know! I didn't know anything! Listen…"

"Back off…"

"What the _hell_ did you steal from those mercs? Huh? Huh?!"

"I dumped the locations from their maps."

" _What_ else?"

"That's it!"

"Don't screw with me, Blake!"

"...step back. Look, sit down. Okay? Give me a second to think." She thought. "I dumped a bunch of messages, too."

"Are you freakin' serious?!"

"I know some people in the Atlas military… look, all of us huntresses did, we all fought in the Battle, okay? I wasn't going letting that slide. I wasn't turning you in, either."

"I don't give a _damn_ what you weren't going to do."

"They had a lot more data than I gave you, and it needed to be looked at."

"FOR WHAT?!"

"I NEED TO KNOW IF THE WHITE FANG ARE DOING ANYTHING! Don't you freakin' scream at me, you little turd! I'll slap the hell outta you! Piss off! I needed to know what was going on, and who they were!"

"You let me get caught."

"I… gods, Wolfe, I tried to get you back, and… and I got you out…"

"You let me get caught. You threw us apart."

"Wolfe…"

"What the hell is wrong with you? Is there anyone even in there? Oh my god… there's nothing to you. There's parts of you _missing,_ girl. It's all it ever is with you! Whatever it is with you and your business…"

"They want to kill me, Wolfe. Or worse."

"'Or worse'? I got 'Or worse,' not you! And, oh, great! More crazies to deal with! Who the friggin' hell are you?!"

"Get that goddamn finger out of my face or I will snap it off."

"... you have a one-track mind, and you're gonna crash and burn if you keep it up, little girl. I've seen this before. You're _nothin'_ special. Whatever you're takin' on, you can't. It's gonna chew you up like dip and leave an even worse mess. The Fang. What the hell is wrong with you. Whatever. They have nothin' to do with this. The Old Bat does, and I'm pissed."

"She's in-country. We can get to her. I can ask her some questions."

"Oh, what, by your freakin' _self?"_

"Yeah, because there's somethin' wrong with me. I'm crazy. I'm goddamn dynamite, and you aren't the only one who's pissed. I want to ask her what I grabbed, because I sure as hell don't know. I want to rob her blind. And you're gonna help me."

"You're gonna help me get to the bottom of this, you psycho bitch. You can go and burn your skinny ass out afterwards, this is the last deal, you're not my problem anymore."

"I guess this oh-so great job really is going to be the last one then, huh? Like you said last week, when you sent me through the goddamn Chute, like I always went and did, and I never complained to you, and I did every goddamn job, and now suddenly you have a problem with danger? _Danger?_ Yeah, you bet your ass this is the last one."

"Brush your teeth, I can smell the crap you spittin' when you get this close."

She huffed and went to the bathroom to finish getting ready.

Wolfe sat and the floor and hugged his knees, trying to get the shaking to stop.

\ \ \ / / /

She actually did go alone to meet the guy with no weapon like Wolfe asked, and felt strange doing it. She hadn't been outside without a weapon since… classes. And that one dance. Holy hell. When didn't she take Gambol with her.

Wolfe must have a lot of cred, because the meet was just the contacts home in a neighborhood of connected townhouses. She walked right up and knocked, as she was told, and a guy in pajamas answered it. "You're the cat-girl."

"...yeah, I'm the cat girl."

"I say this sarcastically. Because I see a bow, and that's it."

She twitched the ears and crossed her arms. "Strip show isn't how I'm paying."

"You're too skinny, and you look too young. Hell, you look real young. Whatever. Come in. Oh! Wipe your feet and take off your shoes, please."

The front room seemed to be a tiny dining room with a rickety table; the wall across from the front door had a hallway leading to a living room, next to a small alcove that held a washer and dryer, and on the the other side of that was another hallway lined with a stove and refrigerator; they'd turned a hallway into a kitchen. Neither hall was long. She didn't bother looking too far past that. There was a vague smell of cooked meat and spice.

The windows had the curtains drawn, and the light was out in the dining room; enough gray light filtered through the curtains. Someone coughed in the living room, and the Screen in there turned on, some daytime talk trash.

The seller motioned to the table, and they seated across from one another. He brought a small shoebox, and then another. "I have nothing else to put it in."

"People might try to rip off shoes."

"Well, I don't have anything else."

"Fine."

"Money?"

She put the lien on the table.

"Okay."

They passed the trade across to one another.

He counted the lien. "Looks good. Thanks."

"Sure. Thank you, too."

"My pleas… look, I hate to ask, but _how_ old are you? What is Wolfe gettin' himself into?"

"You mean the situation? Right? Because it ain't _me."_

"Man, you looked real polite when you first walked in here, and then someone young like you starts talkin' like that."

"It's been a rough night. And I'm sure you said worse when you were my age."

"Which is?"

"Do you really have to know?"

"Yeah. I'll knock some lien off."

"... fine. Nineteen."

"Aw hell, I got a niece your age. She's studying to be a medical tech and nurse. I can't do this…"

"I've been around."

"That's something said about girls when they sleep with some guys. And you're sayin' it when you're scooping up bullets."

"I've had a boyfriend."

"At your age? Well, okay, sure, but I don't like it. You're through secondary. Whatever. But kids put so much on sex; it takes a few broken hearts and a couple burning trips to the bathroom before you wise up. Heh, that's how I learned my kid's mom was going behind my back. And you sayin' you've been around, and not sayin' how. The hell happened to this country? What a town. What a boyfriend, too, I guess." He nudged the shoe boxes. "Take 'em. Go. I don't wanna think too hard on this or look at how young you are." He cut one hundred lien off the price.

Wolfe messaged her when she walked out, saying that he was going to pawn the ring for some money, then go buy two futons, a cheap table, and chairs. Maybe some food. Her eyes couldn't focus on the text. She had just called Adam her boyfriend. She'd never done that. He'd called her plenty of names before, but she never referred to him as anything other than "Adam," or "her mentor." "Boyfriend," seemed a weird word for it. Maybe.

Her feet hurt again. She thought about how some people taunted her during her White Fang training, saying that only a young, little girl would think those boots were sexy. She was too young to even know what sexy was… let alone think about it. That was ridiculous. She was the little sister of the group. She knew that. Well… nobody had ever said that, and Adam had never called her anything sisterly, ever, but… she was like the little sister. Except Illia was there, too; more than one.

She always figured that people were jealous of being around Adam. That was it. Jealous. They looked to have a problem with her being around him so much. Sometimes, people were pretty persistent about it; it was easily brushed off. Which was fine. She was right in brushing it off.

But that time… the memories... it felt… undefined. Nebulous. She hadn't thought about it in a long time, let alone talked about it. The memories were left to starve, caged up in the back of her mind. Nowadays, she was able to see that she didn't really have the best idea on what was going on back then, especially when she realised what all the Faunus First teaching that was drilled into her brain, all the mantras, the dogma she was forced to remember, how she had to clear her mind and focus on her goals, what all that can do to your head, your young, little brain. Gods, how old was she during that? Was any of them? All going off to play soldier...

Was it something else with Adam? It wasn't like they were freaked out by her being around him, at least that she remembers...

He was her mentor, that was all. So what. He groomed her so she could become an effective soldier. She would no longer be a child.

She stood still on the sidewalk, staring at her feet, for the better part of twenty minutes. It didn't even look like she was breathing. When she started walking again, her balance was off, like something had happened that left her walking funny.

She never belonged there, in Beacon, especially among the other kids.

This was the strongest that notion had come to her in awhile.

\ \ \ / / /

(1)

It's like her life was already dark, and then something conspired to make it darker. Maybe it was supposed to be funny, a cosmic comic playing with her life, or it wanted her to see how dark things could really get, to show how bad the real world could actually get.

She was in need of levity; a morose feeling followed her like a stink, and it got worse when mixed with the panic Wolfe was radiating. Blake gave him a look when she got back, at the man wrapped up in his futon. He smiled. "Well, I ain't much of a wolf, never gonna be, but I'm the only one who's willin' to deal with this crap, these people. Guess you're stuck with me, eh?" He patted the futon. "They weren't used. I sure know how to pick 'em." He was trying real hard to clear the air. They were both stuck with each other, after all.

She smiled, nodded, and went to the shower, for the second time that day, with haste and what appeared to be an urgent need. She took a long time, slowly and carefully scrubbing herself. Wolfe shouted tidbits about the Verdeman place while she did so. The situation didn't sound good. Blake did start to ask questions maybe twenty minutes into his spiel. On infiltrating, Wolfe said he might be able to get a maid uniform. The old turtle dove trick. Blake said they called that a cuckoo back in the Fang. "Those birds lay their eggs in other birds nests, and the chicks are raised by the parents, who don't know any better."

"Is that why the Fang are after you? You ran off?"

"We had a disagreement about method and goals. I left not too long after that glass dagger speech they broadcast, when they hacked the Global Tournament back then. It was probably the same techs or geeks who worked the Vytal Festival here."

"Not a fan of humans."

"... I've worked with humans. I don't like inequality. When I was real young, I protested at the mines."

"How young we talkin'?"

"Pretty young."

"Then you're from Atlas originally?"

"No. Menagerie."

"There aren't many mines out there."

"I hate to be this person, but unless you go there and see, you wouldn't know. Plus, my parents were in the Fang."

"Is that what you did for family outings?"

"I begged them to let me go along. And then I started going by myself."

"Talk about supportive parents."

"Sure."

"They teach you how to make a pimp bomb?"

"Piss off. They never bombed anything."

"And how about you?"

"I've never killed anyone."

"That's settin' the bar real low."

"Oh yeah? How about you?"

"Never killed anyone."

A general laugh burst out of the shower. Wolfe was shocked. Was the girl smilin'? For once? And she was in the other room. Figures.

"Were you always this reckless, Belladonna?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said before that you let some Grimm into that… Six, whatever, camp. That could have went pretty bad."

"... they were soldiers. You saw them."

"That means you can do that to them?"

"First off, if you are implicating that I thought they deserve it, I didn't and don't. Second, those men were pretty scummy. Psychos. They weren't the nicest guys around. And to have the guts to set up shop all the way in there, I knew that group could handle themselves."

"Yeah…"

They didn't talk again until she was out of the shower. Blake had no makeup on when she walked out of the bathroom, and her cat ears twitched this-way-and-that as the bath towel was violently rubbed on her wet, frizzy head. She was wearing loose-fitting black gym shorts that reached to her knees. The bare legs and feet poking out of the baggy shorts looked thin, bony and clumsy; her toes were scrunched in on each other, almost looking like they were pointed. They would splay sickenly wide when pressure was put on them; Wofle would never understand the combat heels. Freakin' crazy; it looked horribly painful.

She wasn't quite wearing a shirt, but it wasn't a tank-top; it mostly resembled a wine-red baggy tee-shirt that had the arms cut off. The kind of thing that bro-dudes wore to the gym years gone by; probably still do. It wasn't feminine at all, especially because of the size of it. He doubted she'd ever been that big. Maybe it was a trophy from an old boyfriend, something left lying around that she had claimed for herself; something she had taken and would never talk about.

She went to the small table and set to her equipment, mumbling a bit to herself, holding up and scrutinizing each piece under the light, looking for something that he couldn't see. Several unloaded magazines stood on the table at attention. She picked up a bullet and loaded it into a magazine, over and over.

"Ay, Belladonna."

"Hm?"

"You never even bothered tryin' to get a normal job after the Fall, didn't ya?"

"...there was no way in hell…"

"What was that?"

"I mean… it was bad enough trying to blend into the School. Imagine… like… I don't know, cooking noodles at a stand?" She started laughing. "Oh my… my God… no, _screw_ that. Dealing with people? _Who've never been shot at?_ Forget that! Like, you can't just start up a conversation with someone who has never bandaged their own wounds. When you do, this feeling grows in the back of your head after a while, this weird feeling… I don't know what it is. It's like, a, _pressure_ in your guts, too. Around your liver, top of your abs, kinda pushing down. Not nausea. It's something worse."

Wolfe laughed. "You sound like me after my first prison stint. Five years, thank the gods it wasn't longer. You can't just go back to normal after that. You _rejected_ normal to begin with. And then they want you go right back to it. And they don't even teach you anything good, and forget starting a real career with that on your record.

"They don't know what it _feels_ like to get pumped up. Drugs can't even touch it. And you start to _miss_ it. I mean, you were somebody, a renegade, someone who doesn't take crap from no one and takes what he… hell, _she_ as well apparently, wants."

"What landed you five years?"

"I stole some jerk CCO's prized Bullhound and crashed it."

"Get the hell out!"

"I know right! Pretty awesome, huh?"

"Would have been better if you'd gotten away."

"Hey, I tried."

"Can you even fly?"

"Apparently, I can. But poorly."

"Ha! How far you get?"

"Aw, man, you didn't catch the news that day?"

"I probably wasn't in Vale then."

"They chased me twenty miles! But… as to why I did it… hey, man, the moment presented itself. Check out this scar on my arm. Somethin' broke off and tore it up. Piece of metal, or somethin'."

"Nice. I'd show you the one where some guy tried to stab my heart, but I'm not taking my shirt off."

"Ouch! What'd you do? Break his heart first?"

"...pretty much. Man, it's funny though. Out there, I mean, with the other people. It's just so damn hard to take anyone seriously who hasn't been lit on fire at least once."

"Who's dumb enough to get lit on fire?"

"Who crashes the Bullhound they stole?"

"Touché. Man, this reminds me of one job I was on when I first got out. Warehouse gig. It was legit. I was tryin' to be a good boy. The pay was awful, sixteen hour days, overtime was almost never paid, and we had to meet the quotas, which were nuts. We were peein' in bottles and hidin' 'em so we could keep goin'. They watch you on cameras in a lotta spots and count the number of freakin' _steps_ you make, and try to cut them down.

"So, I'm at lunch, eating freeze-dried noodles, sittin' across from this cool dude who worked there. We would go out and smoke together, just whenever, after work, too. Anyway, we're both just _miserable_ , and he says, 'Screw this. I'm gonna go be a merc.' I forgot to mention, this cat-uh, sorry-this dude was a veteran, like two or three years older than me. I'm sittin' there, chokin' on my noodles, and I ask him what's up. But he starts talkin' and talkin', and he says he can't hack it back here anymore. In the field, boots on the ground, he was also _somebody,_ doin' somethin' that mattered, but back here? Nothin'. That's what we were. What we are. I'll never forget that guy. I went to his funeral a few months back. I just keep askin' why he'd go back to that, but then I just look in the mirror."

"I hate mirrors."

"Me too."

"I remember when the worst thing we-my School friends… my teammates and I-were dealing with was School crap, like some bullying. Sure, my life was twisted before I got to school, and there were rumblings of trouble while I was there, but things were on the up and up in some ways when I enrolled. But, now… we've all actually seen Adam Taurus draw blood, and everything has become so serious. Who does that to kids?" She loaded another bullet into the magazine. "I don't think Adam, or anyone else really, has any idea what they are inviting into our lives. The darkness they are bringing in. None of this is a joke; you can't ignore one part of it because it becomes easier on the eyes, easier to witness. Hold up your end goals and wave everything away. Once you acknowledge how dark the world gets... you can't just dip a toe into that. If you're going to be serious, actually be serious. Don't ignore it. Like I said, none of this is a joke; you're bringing some real suffering to the front, and to just cherry pick pieces of it for… I don't know what it's for. But I think that's crazy. Messed up. More than messed up. Some pretty awful words, words that would upset people if I said them, rude words, but don't say rude words, and don't look at the whole serious picture, because that would be inconvenient to the first world.

"What was that movie, where some colonel goes nuts and a PTSD-riddled soldier is sent out to assassinate him? Right before the colonel is killed, he is on a broadcast system, saying how soldiers can drop fire on the enemy, or whoever might even look slightly like an enemy, but you can't spray paint a swear word on the airship dropping the stuff, because that would be indecent. Obscene. This is not profitable talk for a real world job. At all.

"The people that did this to the city, and our lives, on either side of the race war… the people that probably goaded it on, created it, the terror strikes both committed on each other, didn't think about you and I sitting here right now, or what would happen after it was all said and done. But I bet they are proper enough to not swear in polite company. What kind of world is this, and who the hell would make it this way? It's a joke. A, _goddamned,_ joke."

She loaded another bullet into the magazine.

"There was no need for things to get like this, to have all these people die this way. Gods… why did it end up like this? I just want a life…"

She loaded another bullet into the magazine.

"The stories I heard and read as a little girl would pit kids against monsters, and some had unhappy ends. But it wasn't like _this_. They never had to deal with _this._

"Did you ever watch that war movie _Come HIther and See_? It's a foreign movie about two kids, mainly an adolescent boy, trying to survive the War. I picked it up some time ago, when I was cruising foreign movie forums. I don't know why in the hell I watched it. I guessed I figured I was 'hard' enough? That's sick… I'm actually ashamed at myself for that. Gods… that moment at the end, where everyone is reminded that all the girl wanted was to love, to have babies… the whistle falling out of her bloody and bruised mouth…"

She loaded another bullet into the magazine.

"We never got much in the way of television or movies in the Fang. We couldn't. We were told it was all fake. Especially the news. All biased against us. So, we never really watched it. We mostly had to hide out in camps anyway, so we didn't have have reception, either. We didn't get many books. You'd have to go to a town for that, and any visits were quick and secret. It was always a big risk being out in the open, even if the town was sympathetic to us. Some villages got torn to pieces back in the war, soldiers looking for weapons caches and stuff. Buildings burned. People. Like in Mai Ley. Massacred… damn the war.

"So I would wait for somebody else who came back from town to bring me something. They'd have good some stuff, here and there. It was rarely just up and given to me. We would have to pick it out from a little tent, and all the stuff had to be shared. Armor, sometimes. Weapons. In some sects, clothes. But I got a book one time, the one about this man with two souls. I kept it for myself, hid it in my things. I felt _terribly_ guilty. But it was so long, and so good, I just wanted to finish it. I don't think we were supposed to have it; there was a lot of witchcraft in the story, and it was all done by a human. But I kept it on me for years, rereading it, until Beacon fell. Most of my stuff got destroyed. And I lost that book…"

You could have counted many stars in the silence, and maybe that's what she was doing, looking outside the window.

She loaded another bullet into the magazine.

"I think about that book a lot. I feel kind of like that sometimes, like there is two people in me. We both want to do right, but we have different ideas on what is right and how to achieve it. Yeah, that sounds crazy. Maybe I am. But it's the only way I know how to describe it. I'm of two minds about myself.

"I think on that sometimes… about how I describe my own mind in reference to a book. Nobody else does that. Normal people all get to practice on being normal, and don't have to say, 'Brother so-and-so,' or 'Sister what's-your-name,' and say how 'my mind feels impaired, and meditating on it privately hasn't it helped. I need to speak of it to someone.' Nobody talks like that. I didn't realise that until I was older. Nobody talks like that. Not even adults. They talk like that in the Fang in some parts, or just curse and hang out all informal, talking about, like, a bridge they blew up, the latest actions against some fascist nutjobs. Two extremes, no inbetween. I would sit there and wonder if I really believed in any of it, the fighting we were doing. Maybe I just wanted everyone to have a chance; I was actually no fighter. Maybe. Just anti-injustice. But there I was. Fighting.

"One thing we were was secluded. And that can _really_ screw you over. Because… um… if you don't have that… mirror? if you will, of other people, family, kids your age, friends that weren't 'comrades', then, um, it really messes you up, you know? It's all you know, and all you talk about. Just the Fang, the Fang, the Fang, and the fight for freedom and equality. That's it. The Fang is eventually your family. All you need. You don't know anything about the outside world, because that kind of thinking wasn't tactical, didn't help us reach our end goals. Stuff that will only cloud your mind, obscure our goals. And you start to be unable to tell people apart anymore. Anyone who isn't in the Fang. They all look the same. Just a gaggle of Sheeple. Useless. Collateral. It's hard to take anyone not wearing a mask seriously. I mean, the masks were supposed to make us all look the same, but I could tell us apart easier than I could them. They weren't anything to me, the people outside the Fang. And neither was their world.

"I didn't… I can't believe I'm admitting this… well… you see… I lived at home, and then my family left the Fang, but I didn't, so I ran away to go live in the camps, and then I ran away from _there_ and faked my way into Beacon, and you know what? Can you guess what all those places have that this apartment didn't have? My other, first apartment?

"Freaking _furniture._

"Like, I'm serious. Gods, this is so embarrassing. I didn't know you had to buy a bed. Like… I thought every place had a bed and stuff. LIke, a crappy one, a starter one? You know what I mean? Even school had a bed! So I get there, and there's _nothing._ I had to hunt for one, and a cheap one, and it took, like, two weeks. I only just got the boxspring and frame for the mattress. I had it on the floor for the longest time. And don't even get me started on my desk. Ugh… what a pain in the butt that thing was to get. Somebody was going to throw it out. I'm _so_ glad I spotted it.

"Anyway, when I got out of the Fang, I still wasn't able to talk about… anything, really. Or even put together sentences in a normal way. I barely talked. Still do… I guess. The world outside the Fang was taught to me through books. Nobody reads books anymore. And everyone would think I'm crazy if I said I felt like there were two different people inside me. So, I can't ever try. I don't count this as trying. You already think I'm crazy, so I don't care if I talk now. Is that sad? God, I don't know if that's sad or pathetic. All I can tell you, is that it's how it is.

"And if you leave the Fang, they'll probably kill you.

"Somebody got merked when I was still in school. Book shop owner. Messy kill.

"Who the hell does that to _kids?_ I don't care how old Sienna Khan was, or… um… anyone else when they first started. Who let's me… _any_ kid get involved in all this? What the hell were they thinking? How messed up do you have to be?

"And if I die, there is no record. I've been thinking on that a lot. Every night. There's no public record for the White Fang. And when you're dead no one can tell your politics or your nationality… or who and what you loved, from your corpse. No call goes out.

"And the world is a great place worth fighting for, so I would hate to leave it. Don't get me wrong; I'm not profound, or anything special. I'm not like other girls, sure, but my type of _person_ isn't all that new to the world. My ideas and even this kind of life is as old as dirt, and have real life connections everywhere. These ideas have been to some serious places, beyond what I've seen, and are not something to take lightly. I try not to do that. If you did, that would be an absolute travesty, and if it is done in ignorance, absolutely pitiful. So I try. I try to make something of all this. I have no idea if I am successful or anything, but I'm not going to puff out my chest and say I am successful, and I'm _not_ going to take anything for my efforts. I'll just keep trying. We still have a lot ahead of us, anyway. "

She loaded another bullet into the magazine. It was full now. She grabbed another one.

"The cool thing about the conservative political parties is their freaking _love_ of guns." She pushed another bullet into the magazine. "Take a look at this thing. Look at this beautiful piece of weaponry. It's classified as a 'Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe.' It's not much of a scythe. The blade does fold back over your hand when you fire the pistol, but that's more for being a grapple. The thing is damn dangerous, but useful. You see these little lines on my hand, the scars? It's a hard weapon to master, especially when you're throwing it. If you swing it by the ribbon-which is a nice nylon weave, very hard to get these days-you can hit yourself right in the face, or stick it in your leg, cut an artery… you wouldn't even notice. The adrenaline blocks the pain; it's why people shot with low caliber pistol ammunition can sometimes just run away for quite the distance.

"Like… here, this scar on my shoulder? God… that's never going to heal. Guess I can't wear anything showing my shoulders anymore. Unless I really stop giving a crap. But then, I'm just as likely to not go anywhere with a dress, like a dinner party, right? if that was the case? Anyway. I've been stabbed bad, but the last real big one before my shoulder was right in my thigh, with this here Gambol Shroud. I think I was like… fourteen. Thirteen. Going on fourteen. Whatever. It's another scar that isn't going away. It's why I always wear pants, and these baggy shorts right now. People are weird… Like, I'll talk about the scar, but I won't show it. I'm not ready for that yet. And it's a _big_ scar. We're so weird.

"But when you get stabbed, you don't feel it so much at first. It's just an impact, or pressure. However, you do feel something inside you, like, moving around. It's how _gross_ it is that gets you at first, before the pain. And then the air starts to hit it, and then it hurts real bad. But depending on who you are, the adrenaline-you're right, you get to miss it-might make you power through it. Boom! Hits you like a truck, and you plow forward like one. Some people see things as slowing down, some get it in snapshots, because they aren't conscious of what is going on until later, when they finally stop and think about it… you know this already. But, like, anyway, their body reacts _so_ much faster than their regular mind does. That's where training comes in; you have to get yourself used to messed up situations, when things have gotten really bad, and move automatically. You create a new instinct inside yourself. That's all training is; it's rewiring your brain. You really can't think much during a fight. It's a lot of chaos and luck.

"I guess that's why we got these big guns, and they all got names. All the latest 'killer' tech. What is it, the catastrophe complex? Catastrophising? The thing where it's like, at first, 'Oh, I'm gonna be late for class, and then I'm gonna fail the class, and then I'm gonna get thrown out of school, and then I will be a failure, my parents will disown me, and then I'll live down by the river, under the bridge?' That thing, the mental issue, whatever it's called, where we think things will just keep getting worse and worse and we freak out. So, we overcompensate. We fall in love with our guns.

"Ancient kings used to kill the messenger that brought bad news. I think it's because we, as people, human or not, _have_ to be in control. Killing the messenger doesn't stop what's bad from happening, but it makes us feel like we still have power. The biggest cause of stress for a lot of people is not feeling like we are in control of our lives. So, when you realise how much luck is involved during a fight, having a big freakin' gun helps, and because we think everything is going to snowball, we end up making sure we have the _biggest_ freakin' guns. It gives us some control back. People always attach great meaning to their possessions. You take away everything from a person except one thing, even if it's a… um…a volleyball, it will become meaningful to them. We got our guns, our swords… our lives in our hands. That's what it becomes."

She loaded another bullet into the magazine.

"There is almost no skill to these things, all this fighting, and there never will be. Stories like to paint heroes that are the victors of, like, one hundred battles, but a better descriptor would be the _survivors_ of one hundred battles. Until you are in combat you never understand how tiny you actually are in the scheme of things. You are told to go and do a thing, and if the plan is idiotic, it doesn't matter if you are the greatest warrior of your time, you are _going_ to die. All practice and physical training do is improve your chances. If a Bullhound wants to make a sudden bank back around towards you, bisecting you body with the heavy machine guns on its underbelly, being a martial arts master doesn't help much. A barrage of artillery can evaporate you and even the bloodstain you would have left behind. A lot of people don't seem to understand that's how most battles are fought; it's all about suppressing the enemy with small arms fire, and then blowing the hell out of them from above.

"I overheard some talk by this Ranger once, when I was pretending to be a hostess at a hot spring. I was supposed to be listening in on the soldiers when they talked, and reporting back to the Vale Fang. It was a dead end job; barely of any tactical significance. I'm surprised nothing happened to me in that little outfit. It was a pain to get the skirt to cover up the scar. Anyway, this dude was talking to some small-time reporter, and the reporter was asking the Ranger what his preferred method for taking out bad guys in a building was, like, how to breach and clear it.

"'Call in an airstrike,' he says.

"'But what if you can't call in an airstrike,' because the reporter wasn't picking up on the guy's tone.

"'I call in arty. Artillery.'

"'Okay, what if you can't call in arty?'

"'I ask for a tank.'

"'If there is no tank?'

"'I throw in some grenades.'

"'What if that doesn't work?'

"'I throw in more grenades.'"

A lot of what the girl was saying almost seemed like it was rehearsed, to Wolfe's ears; there was no way to remember a conversation in that amount of detail, at least, he couldn't. These were thoughts that had been spinning around inside her head for some time, and this was the first chance she had to bring them up. He decided not to interrupt. He would let her keep vomiting up the words; there would be no stopping her, anyway, unless he really shut down the conversation. There was no telling what would happen if he did, he realized. The worst outcome wasn't the idea of her striking out at him, but instead Belladonna shutting down completely, like she usually did, dying on the inside and completing her task in silence. That would be too much for him to bear right now. He let the girl talk.

"Only a moron, or the least-liked guy in the squad, or the guy who has the least pull, kicks in the doors, or mans the mounted guns in a vehicle. D.O.D. Doorway of Death. Always get out of the Doorway of Death. Suppress 'em, and blow the hell out of 'em. Don't get close enough to where you can see them too great. Because then they can see _you_ real good.

"It's why we had to be sneaky in the Fang; we had no air or artillery support. Are you kiddin'? Like hell we would have that, _ever._ Until Beacon, anyway. But before, maybe in a straight fight, indoors, we could have a chance, but if we got pinned, that was it, especially outside. When you are lying on the ground, and there's a _big_ explosion, it's like the ground jumps up and smacks you in the face. Confusing as all hell. You can't fathom that you got thrown upwards; it really feels and even looks like the earth just slapped you. Hey, check this… did you know the largest people weigh much more than two hundred pounds while in combat armor? And I've seen Ursa blasted through the air by missles. Way heavier creatures than any of us.

"I'm no Ursa; I'm no Grimm."

She loaded another bullet into the magazine.

"And if you're inside fighting, it's all corridors, and Dust facilities make sure those hallways are super barren; no little places to hide. You get pinned in there you're dead, a thousand holes punched right through ya. So, we had to be fast. As fast as possible. The Shroud? That grapple? It helps with that. And thankfully, so does my Semblance. All our best warriors were fast.

"It was a real shock switching to fighting Grimm. You still have to be fast, but there were plenty of students that would just stand their ground and beat on them. There… was this blonde, and… she would just pummel them. And a redhead with a shield… you can't do that stuff when running through a Dust facility. You stop and you're dead. Keep moving. Don't think. You stare at maps drawn in the dirt, hoping they are accurate. And if they weren't, you have to come up with something real quick."

She loaded another bullet into the magazine.

"In the end, it was all about being _aware_ more than anything else; you could be strong, but if you didn't know what was coming, your strength wasn't worth anything."

Just look what happened to Yang.

She put the magazine down, and looked down at her arm.

Wolfe didn't know what the _hell_ to do. He gulped, and said, "So, uh… I heard the Fang is kinda like a cult or whatnot."

"I guess… we all did talk pretty weird… and we all had to know the doctrine inside and out. We had INDOC, so we would remember the words. We learned how to be silent professionals."

"INDOC?"

"Indoctrination." She blinked. "Holy crap… it stood for indoctrination…?"

"Uh…you've seen a lot of action?"

"Yeah…"

"But you say you don't kill anyone?"

"It was mostly autonomous security units. Robots with guns, and stuff…"

"Wow. That sounds scary…," holy crap, he was lame.

"It was just cheaper for them to mass produce the robots and flood the area with them. But we started becoming able to cut through them real good. It was a joke, really. When they started putting real people in the way, some of us were willing to kill them. I didn't want to. This… upset some people that… _cared_ … for me… very much. I… couldn't… do it… like, kill… killing… just… I left. They were all for it though, last I checked. Oh, man… it's not creepy if I chuckle a bit here, is it? Ah, screw it. It's a little funny. It's just that I remember telling someone that the White Fang were just a little misguided at the moment. You know, when they actively were trying to flood the city with Grimm. Twice. I still don't think I can believe it. And I still think people I know are in the Fang, from when I was a kid. How… how could they condone this, sanction it, work _towards_ this? It's so _evil,_ so horrible, and something needs to be done to these people… I think. Absolutely _evil._ Can anyone ever forgive what they did? What was the Fang even thinking? Haven't they ever even just _seen_ a Grimm with its mouth open all the way? A little kid could fit in there, easily. You know… like the little kids that live in this city, who were there with their parents at the festival for the tournament, and then the Grimm flooded in, and I was running through it, and I was _there_ , Wolfe, I heard them all _screaming,_ and people I know weren't just getting killed but getting cut apart, and I had _helped_ _cause all of this,_ they were stealing so much Dust to make bombs, and _I stole so much myself,_ and all these people were getting _shredded,_ and I had to keep on running to help other people because there was no point once the first victims' wounds were that deep, and it didn't even matter because we were getting torn to pieces and those robots just kept coming, walking in straight lines and shooting, and shooting, and _shooting…_ I don't want there to be an afterlife… I couldn't do it… I don't want there to be an afterlife…"

"Shut up."

"...huh… what...?"

"Shut up. You weren't the only one there, and we both have to sleep now, and if you keep talking like that and give me nightmares I will slap the crap out of you. I don't care if you are a girl. Just shut the hell up. Now."

She shut down just like he thought she would. The magazines were loaded in silence, and the blades sharpened, the guns oiled. The sound of the metal parts lightly clinking made Wolfe wince. Her face was blank as she worked, the fingers moving deftly, without thought. When it was all done she got up and went to the other futon without looking at Wolfe once, and pulled the covers practically over her head. Wolfe was left there with the light on, and he watched the little curled up bulge she made in the futon, hating himself. He was no wolf; a hyena, that hunted in a pack like a wolf, but scavenged, fed on the weak, that's what he was. The lump in the bed was motionless; it was like she wasn't even breathing. That girl was barely alive.

This wasn't life. Something ugly had been dredged up, and now everyone was drowning in the filth. And there weren't any words for all this. What the hell could anyone even say? What the hell would you even say? I'll never understand something like that. I can't ever understand something like that.

All that can be done is to step back with a knot in your stomach, feeling disgusted with yourself. There's no way to talk about it with anyone else, either; it's like doing a puppet show with the dead, so you can show off what you've discovered. It could be called immoral, if you hadn't lost what the idea of what morality even was; it's a garbage bag that fell out the back a hundred miles back, and is now lying on the side of the road. It smells awful. All the guilt was too heavy to drop loose, though.

Wolfe slipped into a fitful sleep.

There might not be an update next week. I have to play catch up. I have stuff written for the ending, the middle, but not for the next part. I always like to reread and go over things before I post them.

Thanks to the one person who is following, btw. I've forgotten your name, because I'm a jerk.

I really like the song Running From the Light by… uh, Buckethead & Friends. What a weird dude; despite that, it's a very nice song.


	4. Four People Talking

Four People Talking

When she woke the following morning, Wolfe was still huddled in his futon; tears stained his cheeks, and he was whimpering in his sleep. She left the man to his embarrassment without a word, going through a morning routine and leaving.

She hadn't been out in the day for some time, and it showed; her skin was practically reflective, and even translucent in some spots, purple veins coiling around in bones like vines. She went for a jog, not having any destination in mind, and not thinking of being spotted by enemies; her mind was still shrouded in early morning fog, and she wanted to be anywhere than that apartment. She was dressed sloppily, sweatpants and tee, the clothes hanging loose off her frame, sticking to her as she sweat. It felt like they were constricting her, but she pressed on.

Commuters buzzed about as they always did, darting through traffic without looking, ignoring the angry yelling of the motorists parked in the deadlocked streets. The cars were bumper to bumper, blaring horns screaming skyward to whoever the traffic gods were. Roadside vendors pushed their carts up to the streets, offering their wares by knocking on the windows of the cars. Few took these advances well, but the ones that did take it in stride would sip their newly purchased coffee and pastry and read the news off their Scrolls, preferring to keep their faces from getting red while the roads resembled long parking lots more and more.

There wasn't much room to maneuver on the sidewalks with this much foot traffic; joggers usually took to the streets before the sun came up. Blake found herself jogging in place, looking for free space to move more than once. She ignored the looks she got occasionally; she knew what they were thinking about her, someone wandering around during rush hour with no business destination, and she didn't have the time or care to explain that in a way, actually, she wasn't unemployed. She was just jammed in crowd of people who were a world apart; same space, different plane of existence.

A half an hour into her jog is when the school children began to flood out; the yellow busses sat in the roads, causing the commuters to panic. She weaved through it all, her eyes catching onto the children and their bright backpacks, garish in their colors, adorned with trinkets and sometimes crude drawings of heroes. The packs bulged with books, and the kids were hunched underneath them, tiny sherpas braving the steep steps of the busses. They looked happy enough; children are always depicted as laughing and smiling, but they have their small troubles as much as the next person. It probably helps us feel better about ourselves to think them as always happy.

The streets started to clear a bit after rush hour, and she was able to jog freely. It was easier to see the shops, what was on display in the windows, the clothes wrapped around the manikins. One street was garments, another was hardware, and she even ran past a library that was selling used books. Nothing jumped out at her, and she felt that none of it ever was. It was impossible to run forever, so she slowed to a walk, and forced herself to look at what was on sale, namely the clothes. She stared at the windows, and on an impulse walked into one of the stores, not caring if she was still drenched in sweat. She stalked the racks, now looking through the clothes as if possessed. One of the store attendants, the least senior on staff, the one who was told that she had to deal with Blake by the shift manager, walked up to the Faunus and asked her what she was looking for, if she needed help.

"Yeah… uh… yeah."

"Do you know what you want?"

"Um… Well… I, uh, yes. Something… I don't know."

"How do you usually dress?"

"Practical."

"Have you looked at…?" and she led Blake around the store. Twenty minutes later, Blake left empty handed, staring at the sky. She looked up and down the street, shoved her hands in her pockets and walked back to the apartment.

Wolfe was up. He didn't bother asking her where she went to, and she didn't bother telling. She showered again, and he cooked some eggs for himself; when she got out, she set to making her own eggs, and Wolfe went into the shower.

\ \ \ / / /

They went over anything on Verdeman that was available. The only layout they could get of the place came from old satellite images and random pictures taken for society articles, about the parties they would have there. The estate was huge, out in the Vale countryside, not far from a small village that it sponsored, one of the few that really made it out in the wild. This was probably due to VEG's security contracts with various militaries, including Atlas and various merc groups; the connections meant they could hire some very good local guards.

"But, guess what, Belladonna. The servants' uniforms for the manor? Heh. They gotta get 'em from here."

"Are you sure, Wolfe?"

"Positive. I'm on the trail of a guy that works for the uniform company that makes 'em. Better material in the city than out in the sticks, so, the Old Bat orders out. Don't worry, it's nothing too skimpy or anything. Probably still embarrassin', though."

"And probably hard to move in."

"Yeah, that too. I don't know how you're gonna get equipment in there."

"We'll find a way."

"Good attitude. Use it to make a good plan. Anyway, Verdeman is having a big party, probably goin' to be takin' on extra staff, and thatta be our way in. We'll slide ya in with the temps they are bringin' on board for that one night."

"Convenient she's having this party right now."

"Whaddya talkin' about? This ain't no coincidence." He leaned over the table. "Why you think she hired us to begin with?"

"You've got to be kidding."

"I've got nothing concrete, but, seriously, think about it."

"... I really don't want to… oh my god, the upper classes… ugh..."

Wolfe laughed. "Awright, awright. Now, I don't know if these people know what you look like. Probably do, but I don't think we need to worry about gettin' too close. We don't have to get the whole uniform, you don't even gotta wear the dress shoes…"

"I'll probably keep pants on under the uniform. Actually, I'll throw whatever uniform it is over top my usual clothes, and just walk in with my weapon. They have to know what I look like up close. I figure if I wear enough of the uniform and keep a distance-when I first enter the grounds-I'll pass from far away. It will become a game of running through th place as fast as possible and getting what I can before they figure out I'm in there. I'm thinking about taking it the way I would in the White Fang, fast and hard. I'm not going to attack the place, just run through it quick as I can.

" Ah… maybe not. I don't know."

"Yeah, I dunno."

"Crap."

"Yeah."

They seemed to think that wearing part of the uniform was the best idea, but they kept wondering about what the actual objective was. Kidnapping Verdeman even came up, and was dismissed almost as soon as it did. They didn't even have a good idea on how to swindle the swag.

"Can't toss it over the fences, they are like hundreds of feet from the entrances."

"How fast can you move?"

"It's not a matter of how fast I can move. It's a matter of running through who knows how many patrols all on those grounds."

"Why can't I spot for ya?"

"From where? Sure, the manor is in viewing distance of the town, maybe only a mile or so, but if you think they are freaking dumb enough to allow a spotter to set up, that's short-selling those professional mercs, Wolfe."

"Well, why not? I can get a good telescope, for looking at things at night."

"You can't be serious."

"What's more suspicious? Stargazing from a hotel room, or wandering around in the woods all close to the house with binocs? And you can move fast, right? You're a damn huntress. Lemme look up some hotels."

"There is no way in hell you are going to find a room that has a good view."

"Lemme take a shot."

"Because a room with that kind of view would be good for a sniper to take out Verdeman, and they wouldn't allow that."

"There's gonna be bulletproof glass and counter snipers. They ain't worried about a sniper. Plus, I would be maybe miles away."

"How in the hell are you…?"

"They make good stargazing telescopes. I mean, I can probably farm the job to rob one from some geeky store to a young guy. Like, hit up some people I know, who want to run a tryout on a new prospect for their robbery gang. Actually, yeah, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. I know a good crew. They got a guy, probably want to see how he does. Doin' a stupid job like that, takin' some cash, grabbin' a dumbass telescope, is a good tryout."

"That's the most idiotic idea I've ever heard."

"You rather them try him out on a liquor store? No. Try him out on some place that never gets robbed, so if they make small screw ups, the clerk doesn't know how to capitalize on it. A liquor store owner will blow your friggin' head off. Some geek will just… well, not do anything."

"You're seriously going to shop the idea of robbing an astronomer."

"Naw, it's a school supplier. I'm serious about this. When you try somebody out, you don't rob a goddamn bank, especially if they're under twenty. Unless they're _you,_ I guess.

"You can't tell me you've never heard of initiations before. Look-between you and me, there is word that some guy who knows a guy who knows a guy is runnin' somethin' to see if some young guy will take a bit part in a crew, the crew you join before you make it in a real crew, kinda. A network of guys that pull jobs all over-by the way, they keep askin' after you…"

"No."

"Yeah, I figured. Look, they wanna see how the kid cam handle a gun and a clerk, so I'll float this idea to them. They owe me a favor, and it's not a big deal. Don't worry about it."

"You're seriously one of the worst people I've ever met for even considering this."

"They have insurance! Everyone does! Come on, it'll give the geek behind the desk a cool story to tell down the line, about how he braved a crew armed with assault rifles."

"Th-the-they are seriously not going to use assault rifles?!"

"...no. Of course not. Lemme… um, lemme make a call."

The next morning, Blake spilled her tea in her lap when she read that a local school supplier was robbed by men wielding shotguns and one machine pistol.

"Whaddya, whaddya! They gotta practice, Belladonna! Come on! No one got hurt! The kid got into the crew! Checked his corners real good, and stuff. Calm down, calm down!"

"Was it seriously worth it for them to do such a thing?!"

"Some of that equipment actually is pretty value-able. You can sell the chemistry stuff to… you know what? You don't wanna know."

"No. No, I seriously don't."

\ \ \ / / /

They now had a long and fat telescope; it wasn't a telescope in the way that she was used to. This was a long tube, _foot wide tube_ that was _permanently_ attached to a base, which allowed for the telescope to swivel up and down; a reflector telescope. A very big one.

"That's almost as tall as I am!"

"It sure is, girl."

"How in the hell are we going to take that with us?!"

"Uh…"

"I know I shouldn't ask, but… how much is that thing worth?"

"...maybe one thousand lien."

"I actually feel ill. I'm not just saying that. I actually think I am going to puke."

"...the instructions say it can see distant nebulas and stuff."

"Nebu _lae!"_ she called from the bathroom.

\ \ \ / / /

They had the telescope, the uniform, equipment, and no plan as they were sitting in the back of a bus heading to the countryside. Blake was wearing the uniform over her clothes, while wearing a hoodie of Wolfe's over that to cover up the fact that she was dressed like a maid, next to a man who was struggling to hold the giant pilfered telescope still so it wouldn't break the mirrors inside.

All silent riders on the bus, each keeping to themselves, no different from the subway train; on the radio came the broadcast for some sportscast, the host now stating that all were going to rise in unison for the kingdom's anthem of solidarity. The roads were badly treated these days, due to the influx of monsters and murderers; the wheels jumped in and out of ruts, rattling the bones of the passengers like an infant's toy. The greenery outside the windows was reduced to a smear; no one bothered looking out as the bus sped down the roads. They seldom saw any other vehicles. The road was for them alone to travel. Blake tried and failed several times to read off her Scroll, but the light and motion sickness caused too much a blight in her head; she would play with her fingers for a time, cracking them, then try to read again. Wolfe sat there with his eyes closed, breathing deep, though clearly awake; the crease of his brow betrayed his attempt to will sleep upon himself. The road continued to buck and twist under the wheels, a long brown tongue that danced the bus. There was no mistake where the two of then were going, and the less time acknowledging it, the better.

Slowly, the trees started to thin, and small farms or haciendas began to crop up; it would be forest, then a break for the farms, and forest again. Civilisation was starting to punch a hole through to them. The farms faded and the forest melted away. Now there were small dirty streets and clusters of buildings, little highway strip malls, gas stations, eateries with claims of a world famous menu item. Sidewalks slithered into view, and with them the intricate metalworks of the over-ornate lamp posts that every small town has, along with the faded banners that dangled from them. A small wall encased the town, squat ugly brick structure concealing small time and simple life, the kind of life city people envied the most, until they realised how boring it was; there was nothing to do but work and keep an eye on your neighbors and a closer eye on perceived insidious outsiders coming into town.

She felt more proactive again, but further reflection on this thought caused her to squirm; this was a _not_ a way to stay busy. She had taken on many jobs since she split from the School, dodged the patrols of the Cordon many times, and now recently, all on her own, received a favor from a general, and not just any General. Her mind went back to talking with Yang, who said she was overworking right before the school dance, and an uncontrollable hate started to bubble in her stomach. When you really got right down to it, who kept finding Torchwick? Blake had been the only one to do it. She discovered the White Fang had armored suits, was stealing huge amounts of Dust, was connected to Torchwick… what the hell did the rest of the team do now? Ever? The sad fact was that there was never time to stop. Life didn't stop. When they stopped someone broke into Beacon Academy. She was now starting to hate the enemy more. It never ended. It never would. This was life. She began to hate herself, for choosing these enemies. There was no proactive. There was only getting up and doing what you had to do. This was it.

She tried not to think about how the other members of the team usually defeated their enemies, and how Blake was mostly backup.

In the hotel, the gray haired clerk eyed the device Wolfe was lugging with him, then focused his eyes on Blake, on the dress pouring out the bottom of the hoodie. The clerk spoke with a slow drawl, something that was between laid back and deep thinking. "Why you bringin' that girl here."

"She's my niece."

"Are you tryin' to get away to where it's quiet and do things to her while she's wearin' that."

"What?! No!"

"This ain't that kinda place."

"It's not for that."

"We have a reputation to uphold."

"We are going to respect that."

"I know you city types that think you can come out here and do whatever you want."

"I, sir, am an astronomer, and stuff."

"Well, what the hell is she supposed to be?"

"I'm taking my niece to a job interview. And the skies are clearer here than in the city."

"Whatever, Mr. Stolle…"

"Professor, please."

"Just don't let me catch you doing anything funny, you hear?"

"You betcha."

As they walked away, she considered briefly dropping a note that said, "PLZ HLP," just to screw with Wolfe. The places your mind goes when you're up against the wall.

The clerk held a deep paranoia, like the whole town did, for what he owned, which was a building he leased because he couldn't afford to have one built for himself, and it was on land donated by VEG. It was the dream people had, to own their own lives. Everyone paid a tax to VEG who in part paid the mercenaries that stalked the streets, standing on street corners with submachine guns spitting locker room talk, until a female passed within earshot, when the mercs would hitch up their pants, look serious, and say, "Ma'am." After she inevitably ignored them, they went right back to the locker room talk. Blake was used to it. The city wasn't much different. But it was always funny to her that cities usually let in immigrants, and small towns with no foreigners as well as no tactical value to terrorists always feared immigrants.

When Blake got back from a quick walk around the town, she said to Wolfe that she was going to grab as much stuff from the manor as she could, in one of the bags she would smuggle under her uniform, have Wolfe spot the outside patrols, tell her when it was clear, then run out and toss stuff over the wall, and go back for more. Her plan for most of the swag was to sink it in a lake. "There is a park not too far. We can just bury it. Heh, like pirates. We really can only fence so much, and need just enough to blow town. Who cares about the rest of it? And I'm too pissed at this woman to let her keep it."

"Are you freakin' serious?" Wolfe belly-laughed. "Aw, man, you gotta point, but _damn,_ it's gonna be hard to not wanna come back up here and get the rest of it. What a _waste!"_

"Well, what can we do?"

"Naw, you're right, we can't move that much, let alone even carry it away. Man, what a shame. But a good burn on the old bitch. Screw it. I'm down. I can grab some shovels today, even, ha ha!"

\ \ \ / / /

There was no goddamn plan. Neither of them knew what they were doing. Wolfe hadn't been able to bribe anyone or turn in any favors. The inside of the place was a mystery; there had to be a million rooms in the colonial-looking manor. There was going to be many people in the place. Security was going to be insane. There was no telling what kind of tech they were going to have in there.

She knew what she was doing. She could see from here it was two stories, and only maybe a half mile out of town, one and a half from where they were. Their room could see over the wall all right enough; there were trees, but they were only outside of Verdeman's personal wall. Once over it, it was a clearing of maybe one hundred and fifty feet. Spotting should be easy.

She was screwed. There were only so many roads into town; one from Verdeman, a few for deliveries, big trucks, and the one road they role in on. The lake they were talking about before seemed to be some sort of reservoir; that's what Wolfe reported when he cased it. It was a small town. Not many new people visited. Verdeman controlled the whole town through her money.

There was reason for confidence. Verdeman probably kept all her personal belongings on the third floor, next to her bed, and high over everyone's head. There would be many drunken guests being a hassle. Nobody was expecting Blake to show up. Why the hell would they. Only somebody crazy would do that.

She looked in the mirror and saw she had the weird smile again. You know what, it wasn't really the smile, which was small and showing no teeth, but actually the way her eyes looked, which were wide, excited, that was strange.

She took off the hoodie.

Night rolled over the sky and flattened the sun. The stars hid behind the clouds. Blake dropped off the roof of the hotel, and started slinking through the streets, staying out of the lights, heading towards the Verdeman place.

Cars flashed by, a constant strobe of lights, towards the gates of the manor; she stayed away from the road, among the trees and bushes. There wasn't a single animal to be seen; Blake saw many of them sprinting through the forest earlier, not used to the sudden burst of traffic. A few unlucky guards walked around the outside of the wall, which was fifty feet away from the treeline. Blake doubted there wasn't any other guards hanging out in the woods. She talked to Wolfe over her Scroll, trying to figure out her location; it took a minute, but he found her with the telescope. She was off course. She needed to go up the perimeter a bit more, jump the wall, and head for the servant's entrance. While wearing clothes on top of clothes.

Well, she was also pissed beyond all measure, so that had to help out at least a little bit.

"Belladonna?"

"Yeah."

"It's clear. Be quick."

She broke the treeline and was floating over the top of the wall in six seconds. She could hear Wolfe say, "Holy crap…," as she sailed over.

Landed without kneeling. Still up. Running like mad. Adjusting her course to the right, towards the glowing door. People walking in and out, carrying boxes. A weird noise in the distance, like rotors.

One of the servants spots her, it's another girl, hands on her hips, "...my god, really? What were you doing out there…?"

Blake is already past her, walking now, and picks up one of the boxes on the ground outside the door. Headlights hit the side of the building; a truck, carrying more boxes. The servant girl is saying something, probably about the mud on Blake's shoes. Paying no attention, she walks inside with the box, and presses it into the arms of some other servant who was standing there. "Said you have to take this to the kitchen," she says to the bewildered man, and walks off quickly, looking like she means serious business, but still flashing an apologetic smile briefly. It's amazing how much you can get away with if you walk fast and look serious. Other times all you can do is smile wide while you're breaking the law. Nobody stops Blake.

She walks through a door and finds herself in a kitchen, angering some people, especially when she pushes open another door and sees that there is a dining area, three huge circular tables filled with people babbling away.

She turned around and walked out, not saying anything. Back in the hall, she pushed through another door. Okay, it looked like she was in a main hall with the usual big, grandiose, curving like a wishbone, expertly carved, glossy and utterly uncreative stairs to the second floor in the foyer, because if rich people were creative, they'd be artists, and therefore, not rich at all.

So, if you looked at the building, straight at the entrance, the big area with the windows on the right of the main door, at least, that's how it looked when she and Wolfe cased it before, was the dining room, this was the main entrance, and there guys by the bottom of the stairs looking at her, time to go back to the hall, but no, there's a different door, why not try it.

She thinks and decides all this in only a few seconds, and already is gone through the new door she spotted. It leads to a library, where a drunk man with large horn-rimmed glasses is pulling book after book off the shelf, letting them hit the floor. He leafs through them a bit before letting them fall. A couple choking on each other's tongues on top of a desk didn't seem fazed by any of this. The man with the glasses looked at Blake.

"They're all real! By the gods! Real! Hey, what are you wearing?"

She brought the Scroll to her ear, let Wolfe know what she's learned about the layout, and walks back into the main hall. She lowers the Scroll after saying, and very loudly, "No, Ma 'am, nobody is checking out the library. No, they're just standing right there. Okay." She lowers the Scroll, staring right at the guards who are glaring right back at her. "Are you two seriously not going to do anything about this?" Blake threw the door back open, and pointed at the man in the large glasses. The guards sprint into the library, and she heads up the stairs ignoring what Wolfe is screaming over the Scroll. The sound of rotors is very loud now.

On the second floor, she starts seeing what looks like spotlights shining through the upper windows of the manor.

Wolfe is trying to yell very loudly, now.

She starts running.

She ducks into a room and tears off the uniform, literally, by hacking it apart with her sword. She tells Wolfe to shut the hell up and then sees that there are holes in the window.

"Belladonna! What hell did you do?! Oh, gawd, what the fu…"

"...I said shut up. Something is wrong. Someone shot through one of the windows. Shut up. All right? Don't get me killed."

"What?!"

" _Quiet."_

There was the sound of glass breaking somewhere else, but hard enough to be heard down the hall and through the shut door of this room… which was some kind of studio, or… who gives a crap. There was some blood on the wall.

She left the room.

From somewhere, muffled, came several voices, which all sounded similar, saying, "Salutations, our name is Nicky! Combat model Mark Five!"

The lights were out ahead where there was the sound of more glass smashing, and now, some gasps and screams. Downstairs, she heard someone yelling very loudly and with a wavering voice that everyone shouldn't panic.

The smart thing to do would be to run away, so naturally, Blake didn't do that, and started to head towards the screaming. The door where the screams were coming from had several big holes punched through the wood, but long, slashes or cuts, not bullet holes. She kicked in the door.

Mephitic.

Effluvium.

Mess.

Pieces.

These were the words that came to her mind when she found the bodies. It's always your nose that notices first.

Verdeman. Blue dress. Yeah, it was her. She kept out of the public eye quite a bit, but if you watched the news, whenever there was a big hearing on homeland security, her face might pop up. She was older-looking than Blake expected.

Very dead.

So were the two guards, men wearing suits and welding some sort of submachine guns, something that could have been smuggled in the open suitcases on the floor. Cut into large pieces, all three of them in the same way. Oh, man. She knelt down next to them, looked at their weapons. "Poor bastards weren't even con one."

Wolfe must have heard, because faintly, from her pocket, "...what?"

"What?"

"Weren't what?"

"Con one."

"-"

"Condition one. Their weapons weren't loaded. Magazines were in but not cocked. Sometimes you can't load your gun when on base. Army stuff. Kinda dumb most times. I guess it's to stop random shooting or something. I don't know."

"You know a lot about this stuff."

"So? I went up against guys like this before. Besides, enlistment age is eighteen, remember? What were you doing when you were eighteen?"

He shut up, and she went back to looking around. This room had a skylight. Of course it did; to not be opulent was to not be anything. That's how the killers got in. Had to be killers. You don't ride over in a Bullhound by yourself. She looked up through the skylight at the Bullhound there, starting to drift away through the air, and brought up her Scroll to snap a photo of the logo… of which there was none. Not even the Six's. It was nobody's; no one wanted to be responsible for this one.

The door was open on the side, and standing in the open door was a skinny girl with silver hair, too far away for Blake to see her face, but close enough to see the girl wave at her, even… blow her a kiss?

What a bitch. Way to rub it in.

The girl pulled something off her head, and tossed it down to Blake, who picked it up off the floor. A large, pink bow. Why. Why a bow when they were all wearing urban camouflage.

What was weirder was that there were others sitting in the Bull, and they all looked like they had silver hair. They all looked like girls, too. Same camouflage.

Wait.

It always takes a minute for your subconscious to put things together, the things you heard and saw earlier.

Oh, no. No way. Come on, that's too much. Don't be that. Please. Things had gotten more than awful enough.

"Belladonna?!" Wolfe again.

"What."

"Cops are runnin' all over town now. I'm checkin' out. I don't know. I'm gonna try to skip."

"Right now?!"

"I think they are headin' up to the room. I'm outside. I think they're lookin' for me. They might have seen me. Look, I can't help ya. Get the hell outta there. Just run. I don't… aw, damnit!"

"Wolfe? Hey! _Hey!"_

She swore. The call was cut.

Time to go.

There was screaming coming from downstairs, and some gunfire. Back in the hall, looking out the window, she could see guards shooting at the Bullhound. Then there were men on the staircase, shooting at her. She dove through the window, landed in the lawn, and was looking at a line of police cars. Someone smashed the back of her head.

Oh, it was going to take more than that.

She spun on her heel and gave the guard a spinning roundhouse, knocking him right to the floor. He shot her twice in the stomach with his sidearm.

She doubled over, gasping, and kicked the man in the head. She stumbled over him, and was hit in the back with buckshot. She lost her breath; she spun with her arm out, dropping her gun, but was shot twice more, one hitting her just over the heart, and another in her left shoulder, spinning her again. These were high caliber rifle shots. She wondered if those two had gone through her aura. They felt like they might have gone through a bit. She felt needle pricks where they had hit.

She spun so hard her neck hurt. The cool grass felt nice on her face when she fell over. Blake closed her eyes and sighed, curling up on herself as she felt more than heard the footsteps coming towards her. She knew what was coming next. They were going to start kicking her. Like back at the mines when she was young. Except one group of people was screaming that the girl dropped the gun, she surrendered, stop firing, that was illegal, attempted murder, and all the voices started to bleed together. Hands explored her, flipping her onto her stomach, probing everywhere, every little crack. She tightened up without thinking, and yelled out loud as they brought her hands behind her back, slapping three sets of handcuffs on her. She was flipped onto her back. The strobing lights stabbed at her eyes, until the flashlight from some medic mesmerized her, caused her eyes to glow like lost suns in the night. Her stomach felt like it was flipping over and over as she succumbed and stared slack-jawed at the light like a stupid animal. The light filled her whole brain, scorching it, setting it on fire.

"No holes." The medic snapped off the light. "Some blood, but no holes."

"Cripes, she's got a strong Aura."

"Think we need more cuffs?"

"Three's good."

Back on her stomach, and now she was beginning to thrash. There was a sudden popping noise by her ear, something electrical. She stopped moving.

It was horrible, not being in control of her own body. Their fingers dug in under her armpits; as they lifted, she swore she could feel their nails scraping against the ball and socket joint. It made her grind her teeth, not in anger, but more a cringe, involuntary. They barked at her to walk. She didn't want to; dead weight, that what she wanted to do. But one foot went in front of the other, and as she watched her legs move, her face screwed up. She eventually closed her eyes and bowed her head.

They almost smashed her face into the roof of the cop car shoving her in the back; she thrashed her head back and forth when she felt them palming the back of her head. The response was the cop threaded his fingers through her hair, took a grip, fingernails gouging her soft scalp, and practically threw her into the car face-first. Her neck cracked again as she went in, and started to hurt. Her whole body was starting to ache now, especially everywhere she had been shot; her clothes were starting to feel sticky and wet there, as well. When the two cops got in the front of the car, she said she was bleeding, and they said to shut up. They didn't wait for her to sit up before they tore out of the Verdeman place. She slid around on the seat, unable to get up, feeling the blood starting to smear through her clothes and onto the pleather of the bench seat. Nobody cared; she knew the bleeding was minor, just from small cuts where her Aura had been pierced, and the cops didn't seem to care if she bled out, which is what she was claiming was happening, that they needed to take her to a hospital, this was police brutality. The told her to shut up.

It seemed that the way to the police station passed by the hotel, because the cop car slowed down in front of it, so the cops could talk to another one standing outside. They shouted back and forth for a bit, about the other guy they nabbed, before speeding off again. She let herself fall off the seat and hit the floor, moaning. They told her to shut up. She kept moaning, though the spirit behind faking it clearly wasn't there anymore.

The cop car pulled into the basement parking of the precinct; when they opened the door, she was tossed out and into arms of three men, who began to drag her towards some kind of elevator. She complained to the new cops about her bleeding, and they said they would look at her inside.

Nothing much happened in the elevator. Blake shrank inside herself, feeling naked except for the shame on her shoulders.

There weren't many people waiting to be processed in the station, just some loud drunks, a few other bloodied people, bar fight or something. They pushed her ahead of the line in a hurry, turning her around to process her fingerprints, twisting her hands painfully behind her back.

While they were straining with her fingers, she smiled through the pain and said, "Worried I'll get my energy back?"

"Your face is on camera, you won't get far if you pull any crap in here, Yukamoto. Nobody's worried about you."

"Uh huh, whatever."

"I thought you were bleeding."

She was, and she made sure to smear it on the desk by falling over. This angered them more, and they dragged her off towards one of the offices, an interrogation room. One of the drunks, a man handcuffed both behind his back and to a radiator, stood up and said, "Hey! I was here first!"

She smiled at him, "Hey, man, just keep your chin up!"

"I gotta freakin' pee! Imma just gonna go! I need to get in that cell, or drunk tank, somethin'!"

"Yeah, but wait it out and keep your pants dry, I think this a three day weekend!"

"Aw, it is, isn't it!" He swore, and she wanted to wish him good luck, but they actually threw her into a tiny room with a two-way mirror. Nothing in it but a chair, and enough room to walk around it. She smacked into the wall, leaving a mess of ink and red on it and the floor. They told her to get the hell up, and she said she wanted a lawyer, so they picked her up and sat her down. A detective walked in, she could tell by the beige slacks and loose tie, looking tired. His coffee breath snuck up her nostrils and squatted there. He told the beat cops to leave, then turned and asked her, "What the hell are you doing here, Yukamoto?"

"You guys processed my Scroll fast."

"What are you doing in my town?"

"Here to apply for a job."

"A job?"

"Yeah, crash test dummy, been getting a lot of practice in tonight, you guys going to look at my gaping, bloody wounds?"

"You ain't bleedin' bad."

"If I drop dead in here, you all are screwed."

"My psychiatrist tells me that I should take things easy, not let the stress get to me, so I take things as they come."

"You have to go to a psychiatrist, eh?"

"Department makes ya every time you shoot someone. What are you doing in my town."

"Minding my own business."

"It looked like you were minding Verdeman's business."

"I don't know anything about that. Though there are other people who would."

"We got your friend, Clifton Stolle, down in the other room already."

"I came here alone."

"Not what he's sayin'."

"Sure he is. Whoever he is."

"Isn't Blake a boy's name?"

"...wow, we're really jumping right to that, are we?"

"Boy's name, right?"

"It's my name, for one thing."

"Why a boy's name?"

"Can't wait for the jail honeys."

"Oh, really?"

"Your wife like it that your here with me and not with her?"

"My wife? She's fine."

"Think she's screwing around?"

"I hope so, poor girl is there all alone, but let's talk about you. The hell are you doin' in my town?"

The door opened, and another detective walked in, saying, "Hey, she's bleeding, has anyone checked her out yet?"

Blake rolled her eyes. "So, this is the part where you two argue a bit, he sends you out to get a doctor, and then he asks me the same crap as before, but nicely?"

The second detective shut the door. "Lemme talk to her first. How come you are so smart about cop stuff? Been in trouble before?"

"You people grab up just about anybody for any reason. I've already seen the act, especially with how lame it is."

"What's somebody who gets in so much trouble doing in this town?"

"Oh my god, ask a different question, _please."_

The second detective pulled out his Scroll and started to flip some pictures right in front of Blake's face. It was Verdeman.

Blake looked away, but the cop kept pushing the pictures in front of her. "You have my weapon. Cutting somebody up like that, the bones would nick the blade. My sword's clean. Look at the pieces. The waist down isn't even attached."

"And one of the arms is gone, and the torso is sliced in two as well. Same as her bodyguards, almost _exactly_ the same. But, whatever. We're gonna peg you as an accomplice to murder."

"Why would they leave me behind. There is no way in hell no one else didn't see that airship."

"We'll figure that out later. That's the DA's job when we get you in court. If you're so damn smart you know how this works, that's it's our job to put the cuffs on, his to make it work. You just admitted to being there, by the way."

"Where was I there? You caught me on the property, but not killing anyone. Witnesses can stick me in a hallway…"

"Still right by the triple homicide. What the hell were you doin' there, Yukamoto."

"I wouldn't cut her up like that. I wouldn't have anything to do with something like that, dressed as I was. There are other witnesses you're gonna find…"

"It's still B&E, and if we find priors or any connection to unsavory groups it's off for a long time. You'll wait for your trial in general lockup, so start talkin'."

The other detective picked at her head. "What's under the bow?"

"Ears." She didn't want them to pull off the bow.

"Ears?"

"Ears."

"You in the Fang?"

"Is every Faunus? That's profiling. Discrimination."

"I hope you don't have no connections, because that'll get bad."

The other cop put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in. "What was going on? Play with us. We can be nice. What did you see?"

"I saw people shoot me out in front of the house, I see blood on my clothes, and I don't see no goddamn doctor or lawyer."

They both stood up from her. "That's how you gonna play it?"

"I'm not playing anything."

"You know, your buddy is just _singing_ over there?"

"What'd he say?"

"Plenty."

"So, just that one word, huh?"

"You ain't funny."

"I feel like I'm doin' a better job than you. He talkin' but he ain't tellin' you why we're here?"

"We are makin' sure you got your stories straight."

"He's an astronomer, he wanted to use his telescope and I came here to interview for a job."

"It's gonna get _real_ freakin' bad if you jerk us…"

There was a knock at the door, and the two of them walked out. She squirmed in the chair, tried to move her head so she could look at the small spots if blood on her torso. Her face wrinkled, then smoothed and stared into the mirror. The gold eyes didn't move; they focused on one spot alone. Ten minutes went by, and she slowly shifted her gaze to another part of the mirror. Then, another, and another. She barely blinked, and she didn't seem to be looking at herself so much. Or maybe she was. It could have been for the next five minutes she linked eyes with herself. The air barely moved. There was no reaction from or behind the glass. Blake stared. She twitched her head once, as if something itched the back of her head, giving her a start. Her pupils were dark pits slotted into her face that drank up all light. Stone was weaker than her face. She stared.

The two cops came back in and hoisted her off the chair. "Come on."

"What now?"

"Goin' for a walk."

In the hall, she commented that they suddenly weren't very talkative. She didn't care, anymore; she'd resigned herself to the fact that she was going to sit in a holding cell, and then a real cell, for a very long time.

They pushed and shoved her back to the booking area, towards a stairwell heading up. The drunk guy from before stood up. "Managed to get my fly down!"

"Good on you man! Good on you! Keep the faith, brother!" They shoved her up the stairs.

They went up, and up. Cells might be on a higher floor. But the top? The roof? Which felt like it was vibrating, as well.

She started struggling against them. They told her to cut it out, or they'd get nasty. She started to tell them they didn't have a chance with her now that she was rested, but the words were drowned out when the cops pushed open the roof access door and the now landed Bullhound kicked up dust and a racket with its engines. Wolfe was out there, on the ground, kicking up at one cop, while another had walked off, grabbing at his crotch, spittle of vomit hanging from his lower lip like a long rope to the ground. Someone kicked Wolfe in the head, a tactic they really seemed to like, and now he spat as well, looking real dizzy. Blake was trying to throw off the two men at her elbows, screaming that Wolfe had to be concussed, when suddenly an elbow hit her lip against her teeth. The cop shrugged, and said his grip slipped. His leaned in and tip-toed his voice up to her ear, tickling her neck as he did so, "My mistake. But, hey! Could've been worse. Could've been waffled. You know what that is? That'd be when a perp isn't wearing their seatbelt, and we have to hit the brakes, so they fly forward into the mesh in the patrol car, usually face-first. Very unfortunate. But you get to fly in a big bird like a big girl, so do yourself a favor and try no to embarrass yourself, ya hear? You might end up over the ocean." He passed her on; there were men with very large guns all over. She let them throw her into the ship.

Wolfe followed, banging his head again on the floor. She wanted to help him, but some sort of soldier shoved her into a seat and buckled her in. Wolfe was given the same treatment, and the doors were shut and the Bull took off.

\ \ \ / / /

About an hour into the flight, they both had their hands checked to make sure they weren't getting blood clots; no purple, all good. They weren't uncuffed, leaving them to pretty much sit on their own hands. There was no talking. Blake kept looking at Wolfe, trying to see if he was bleeding from the head, and noticed he was staring at the bloodstains on her clothes. One of the men was playing with the Gambol Shroud, prodding it, looking at the ribbon, checking out what kind of ammunition it carried.

They slept.

There were no windows, no clocks, nothing but metal walls. Wolfe began to get antsy. The air started to get much colder, and heaters whirred to life, though it barely did anything. Both Blake and Wolfe shivered like electroshock patients in their wet, sweaty, bloody clothes. The only good thing was Wolfe hadn't slipped into a coma during his sleep.

They slept again.

When they woke, they found themselves flung on the floor. They were grabbing at Blake's lower half. She just closed her eyes. And then they cut through the handcuffs, sat her and Wolfe up, looked at their hands, and said breakfast was now. They were each handed an MRE. Confused, they ate it, though Blake sniffed every part of it, cautious.

There was a window, and Blake leaned a bit and managed to see what was out of it. Snow, a lot of snow. Hills and hills of it, than plains of it, and then mountains for a bit, until finally she saw what looked like a giant lake of ice. A cliff wall, high but not skyscraping, lorded over it, and on the edge, overlooking, was a magnificent house. The airship started to lower itself, and it looked like they were going to land on a pad on the water, near some docks that stretched right into the cliff wall.

The Bull nudged down, wobbling a bit, and the doors were opened. The soldiers took their elbows, gently, but still pulled them out of the ship. They stood on the docks, looking up the vertical cliff wall.

Wolfe rocked back on his heels, and screamed, "And who the flyin' crap is _this_ now?! Where the _hell_ is this?!"

A man stepped up, seemingly out of nowhere, "Miss, Mister… whoever, I feel we will find out soon enough, those forgeries of yours weren't the best, welcome!" The fact that everyone had to shout over the Bullhound struck Blake as ludicrous; there was a time for decorum, and this sure as hell wasn't it; the guy bowed towards them. She yelled at the man, who was dressed in a nice white suit… he even had a white tie, like, why… whatever, that Wolfe was concussed.

Wolfe screamed in the guy's face. "Where the hell is this?!"

"Atlas."

"What?!"

"I said Atlas!"

"I freakin' heard you!"

"Oh, but…!"

" _What the hell are we doing in Atlas?!"_

"In due time!"

Blake rolled her eyes. "Did you just seriously say 'In due time?'"

"Why, yes! I did!"

Wolfe shook his head. "Everybody is just so goddamn dry these days!"

Blake asked, "Look, seriously, what is going on?!"

The man pointed out that she looked like she was bleeding. Her attempts to tell him it had stopped hours ago went unheard. Gently, they were guided along the dock and through a set of thick metal doors right in the cliff face. Past them, was a small security station, along with some geek at a comm desk communicating with some flight tower out there on the property. A large cargo elevator was at the back, and they all rode it up, straight through the cliff.

They exited into a basement, the basement of the mansion? were led through a door, and found themselves in

"An infirmary? Seriously?"

"Dude. This guy is loaded."

Several rows of cots, with sheets held up between them, like a school. They were guided to separate cots, and told that a nurse and doctor would be there soon. They were advised to get out of their old clothes, not their underwear, so they could be examined. Well, it was heated enough, so they closed their separate curtains and acquiesced, and were left alone.

It was quiet for a minute or two, "Hey, Belladonna."

"What."

"Cops said you talked."

"Oh, did they?"

"They said the same thing about me, didn't they?"

"Yup. But I said you were an astronomer back to them."

"Ah, you see, that's where we screwed up. I said you the real, actual Adam Taurus, but in drag."

"Funny."

"Eh, one of 'em chuckled. Where the hell are we."

"Far outside your contacts. I can't believe it, we're in Atlas now…"

"This has gone too far. Seriously. Are these those Six guys?"

"...No, I don't think so. They're a private group, for whoever runs this place."

The doctor and nurse arrived right then. After they were both examined, Wolfe was asked to stay, but Blake was guided to a shower, where she found the spare set of clothes she had packed for the hotel room outside Verdeman's. She asked about her weapon, and was told it would be given back to her soon.

After, little bandages were put on her wounds, she dressed, and made her way upstairs to talk with the Baron.

\ \ \ / / /

She opened a door at the top of the stairs, and found herself in a large main hall. Déjà vu pounded at her temples. And then there was some blonde girl in a blue dress poking her back and Blake nearly wheeled on her and punched her.

"Helloooo there!" The blonde was smiling so wide you could count the teeth in her head.

"Um… hi. Uh, the doctor said something about a… a freakin' Baron I have to talk to…?"

"He's taking a conference call. Stay with us instead!" She stuck out a hand. "Bridget Verdeman."

"...chaaaaaaarmed.

"...wait...

"...what?"

"I'm the daughter-in-law of Sophia Verdeman, who seemed to hire you, Miss Belladonna, for action against my interests. My actual father, the owner of this estate, is Baron Basil Bartholomew Bartlett. The third."

"...oooooooookaaay, then."

They shook hands.

"Who are the others you told me we could join?"

"They're sitting around in the lounge. We could join them, but… Would you like a tour, first?"

"This is the third expensive place I've been in, and the second today. I think I'm good."

Bridget insisted.

So, they walked around.

It was very nice and stuff.

Blake still ached from being shot. She wasn't feeling very attentive. But it was very nice and rich and stuff. LIke stated earlier, mansions don't tend to be very creative; the imagination wanes after the first few thousand square feet. A lot of it is very childish, every fad on display, whatever decorations, art, furniture and curtains that were fashionable that year. Even down to the damn climate control that listened to your voice.

Looking at a well-to-do person's digs is like having to sit through a mediocre acquaintance's artwork, the drawings or paintings they worked very hard on being held up and pushed almost up your goddamn nose, while you smile and say, yes, they're very nice. God help you if they go at length as to the technical side of their work, where all they do is regurgitate buzzwords that were puked into them and now they to you, like a chain of mother birds sharing a meal; it's even worse if the knowledge is from a textbook. Or the internet.

So they banged their heels on nice tiles and nice carpets and gawked at high ceilings and you can see the lake out that window, no, go ahead, take a picture, so Blake slowly pulled out her Scroll, which she didn't want to do, Bridget just said to do it, as if it was only natural that somebody would stop everything they are freaking doing when they are being forced to walk around a goddamn huge ass manor on no sleep after being shot maybe five or six times by at least three different people but if Blake doesn't take the goddamn picture then it will upset this woman, and Blake doesn't even know why she even gives a crap if she pisses off this clueless ditz but she takes the picture anyway and her damn shoulder hurts, and her stomach and her back and her head.

"Oh, that looks nice. Now, how about you stand in front of the window, and now I'll take your picture! Strike a pose! You're turning away from me… but that's good! It makes you look… thoughtful and stuff! Okay, hold it right there Blake! I can call you Blake, right? We only just met, but it would be just weird if I called you Yukamoto… actually, I bet that's not even your real name. And Blake sounds like a boy's name! What's up with that? Whatever, get ready! Actually… you're leaning against the window kinda heavy. Why not straighten up a bit? Okay! Perfect! Here goes! Awesome!"

There is a point in life-another point that wasn't the previous point brought up a while ago-where you start to wonder if you ever had any control of your life, if you are ever going to have control of your life, and if you did, if you could even make anything out of it. Blake always felt like she was the pawn in much bigger things; she was born a Faunus, had to fight for her rights, people with more money than her restricted her rights, she was a huntress, because she felt like she had to fight for people, who relied on her to fight on their behalf, and she became a huntress because the group she was originally a part of decided they were going to go absolutely bat crap insane and start massacring people, and those same people blew up her city, so she became a wall-hopper, which led to her stealing a necklace and some stuff in a computer and now she was here, her hand being taken by some blonde and dragged off towards somewhere, I don't know. She didn't know what was going on.

How much of this could she blame in other people, and how much was her own fault. She didn't create her own feelings, though. She did chose to act on them, if there was a choice.

Either way, Blake looked pretty screwed.

Bridget pushed open a pair of large double doors leading to some large common or gathering area, a place to keep the grand piano or something when entertaining guests… oh. Well. Off in a corner was a grand piano. Huh.

So. It was that kind of room.

A decently high ceiling, fireplace off to the side, currently lit, nice hardwood floors in case there was a sudden hysterical fit of dancing, and by the fireplace was a couch flanked by two recliners. The recliners were angled, so the whole setup made a sort of fat, lazy semicircle. A small wooden coffee table sat in the middle of this, and on the left seat sat a man, another man sat on the couch, and Bridget sat on the recliner to the right. Blake was told to sit next to the man on the couch, who had dirty blonde hair himself. He looked like he almost weighed as much as Blake did; she didn't quite like the smarmy smile on his face. It seemed like he was trying to be friendly, but just ended up looking smug. She tried not to look at him, so she ended up looking over at the other man with wiry black hair and thick glasses; Blake wondered where his pocket protector was.

There was a noise as Bridget sank into the other recliner, and began to fidget in it, playing around with some sort of tablet. The wiry-haired man said to her, "Man, you really do just _love_ getting in that seat when he's not around?"

"Well, I'm looking and seeing if he is still in that conference. But, yeah, I'm not above admitting I like the chair."

"But not at first. You give an excuse, first."

"Well…"

"That's pretty telling."

The blonde man spoke up, and with a thick accent, trying to be playful, "You can look at her face, she's super not good at keeping a smirk off."

"I can keep a smirk off!"

"Oh, you _cannot."_

"Well… I'm not a big liar. That's a good thing!"

"Are you saying I am?"

"Nope."

The wiry man said, "Just keep staring at her. There's no way she isn't gonna start smiling."

The blonde man said, "I can already see the beginnings of a smirk there."

Bridget tried to keep her face straight.

"She's crackin'."

"Oh, _totally._ Though, I wish she wouldn't. I kinda wanna wipe the smirk off her gob."

"Who the hell are you people." No smile on Blake's face.

The fire cracked. Something had to make a sound.

The wiry man spoke, "Well… there are other ways to go about that."

"And that was _kinda_ rude." The blonde man had a habit of drawing out a lot of his words, filling them full of meaning. High-context and not high-concept.

Greg waved his hands a bit. "...You know what? Whatever. Whatever. Hello and welcome to the Bartlett mansion. I'm Gregg."

"Garrett," said the blonde man with the accent.

"Bridget!"

"...okay… I'm Blake..."

"Um… so, Blake!" Bridget leaned over towards her. "What do you do for fun?"

"...read, mostly." She refrained from saying, "Sharpen my blades… oil my gun…"

"You don't go out?"

"There's not much to do past curfew in Vale."

"Oh… oh yeah… you're from Vale."

The fire picked up the slack again.

Blake looked around. There were a bunch of shelves in the room, full of little nick nacks. Some looked like techie toys. She felt very goddamn tired.

Greg picked up a laptop. "Alllllll right... well, I guess we can all open it when it gets here. We're all in the same boat now, anyway."

Blake blinked. "Huh?"

Garrett piped up. "It seems to be that she's after all of us, now."

"Her, with the silver hair. Her. That's the 'she…,'" and then Blake shut the hell up because Bridget was right there, except, wait… Bridget was fidgeting, but composed. That's right. Bridget was the woman Blake was hired to steal from… and she had just guided Blake around like a guest. Nice one, Belladonna.

"Yeah," Greg said. "But… let's not think about that right now."

"I'd rather not," said Garrett.

"...all right."

"There's other things to talk about! It's okay!" Bridget was smiling and looking at Blake.

Blake cocked an eyebrow at her. "You're one of those 'turn that frown upside down' kind of people, aren't you."

"Well… it _does_ take more muscles to frown than it does to smile."

"...would you rather pick up an anvil with one person or a group of them…"

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Um… well, how about drinks?" Bridget hit a button on her tablet, and a tall but soft-spoken man came in. She winked at Blake. "He's _real_ good. Go ahead! Get whatever you want!"

They all put in an order. Blake was the only one getting tea. She felt bad; it looked like a whole kettle was going to be put on for just her. Maybe Garrett, though.

Greg clapped his hands a bit. "Guys. I'm _so_ excited."

Garret, "How far away is it?"

"Not far. It will be here in maybe a few minutes."

Bridget sipped at her coffee. "That's crazy they would go and send it all the way out here."

"Well, it's their job."

Garrett smirked. "It's precisely what they are hired to do."

"Well, yeah, Garrett. I know that, come on." Bridget pouted.

Garrett looked thoughtful. "You know… I wonder what the weirdest thing they've ever delivered."

"Probably going to be some kind of weird bedroom toy thing."

Greg spoke a little slowly, "Yeah, I would assume that… though I just wasn't going to out and out say that." He laughed. "Actually, no. I bet you a lot of people do that stuff online. Nobody wants to be the person seen walking out of a store like that."

"Oh, gods! Definitely!"

Garrett spoke up, "It's gotta be something _really_ out of the ordinary. Like… I don't know, hot dog stand or something."

Way out somewhere, somebody's laughter floated over faintly. Blake twisted her ears around, confused as to where it came from.

Gregg's laughter was smothered under his words, but it gave him a weird tone of voice. "A hot dog…!"

Bridget was slowly shaking her head with her eyes closed and hands up, palms towards the ceiling. "What…?"

Greg butted back in. "Who the hell would order a hot dog stand?!"

Garrett shrugged, laughing a bit like someone who realised what he said was kind of dumb. Or like someone who said something dumb to goad on other people. Or someone who was spaced out from a good bowl of… um, salad. "I don't know! Maybe he's hungry!"

"What?! Who?!"

"The guy ordering it!"

Bridget was just leaning over, laughing. Now there were a few people laughing from somewhere, and Blake felt the bleeding start up again under her bandages.

Gregg was able to somewhat compose himself. "Okay, first off, you can't order a hot dog stand online…"

"Well, how do you know?"

"Do you want me to check?"

"Yeah! That would be awesome if ya could!"

"Oh my god, Garrett… I'm gonna have someone else do it. That's too stupid for me to do." He typed a bit on the laptop. "And… getting back to it! Before you freakin' _derailed_ me! Do you think that if you ordered a hot dog stand it would come with a hot dog guy?!"

"Well no! Of course not! Though that would be bleedin' awesome. Just some hot dog guy in your house, givin' you hot dogs. You know, whenever."

"Yeah, but it would cost money!"

"But I already bought the stupid hot dog cart! Like hell that guy is going to come into _my_ house and sell me the hot dogs that _I_ already bought! That would be ludicrous!"

"Okay, so _that_ would be the ludicrous part?"

"Absolutely!"

Bridget butted in. "I was gonna say it would be stupid to think they would ship a whole bunch of hot dogs and buns and stuff. _In_ the cart."

"Well," Garrett turned to her, "Where the hell else are they gonna go?"

"They would go bad in there!"

"No they wouldn't! Those things are designed to keep the hot dogs good!"

"When they're being used!"

"It'll be alright. The guy will be there with them."

"What?!"

"I dunno… poke some holes in the lid, it'll be fine. They do it with dogs!"

"If they didn't, those would be some hot dogs."

Blake burped, and swallowed something that left a sour look on her face. Her next swig of tea, she swirled it around a bunch in her mouth before swallowing. "...goddamnit…"

Greg looked at Bridget, "No, those would be _dead_ dogs."

"Yeah, they wouldn't get any air, Bridget, what are you on about?"

Greg said, "Forget it, this is stupid…"

"Well, the whole point was me wonderin' what the stupidest thing…"

"Dumbest…," Blake said to herself.

"...they ever delivered was!"

Greg shook his head, "No, you said the 'weirdest."

"Yup," Bridget agreed.

Garrett looked back and forth at them, "Oh _what the hell,_ come on! Now you're just gonna go and get all semantic on me!'

"It is what you said… besides, I personally think there is a fine line between 'stupidest' and 'weirdest.'"

Blake's face wrinkled up. "My shoulder hurts. And my head."

The fire was almost dead. Someone came in and built it back up.

Something beeped on the laptop. Greg was ecstatic. "It's here!"

A few minutes later a large cardboard box with the logo "Nile" stamped on its side was brought in and placed on the table. Garrett asked what the deal with it was, and Greg told him it was a random box he had ordered.

"Well, what's it got in it?"

"I don't know. That's the point."

"That's the point?"

"It's a bunch of random stuff. They actually sell boxes filled with random stuff."

"They just do that? Fill a box with random crap and ship it out?"

"Yeah! I had to know what was up with it, so I got one."

The three of them cut it open and started pulling stuff out. Blake's head was cocked to the side, looking at the logo on the box, her lips slowly becoming pursed.

Greg spoke. "If the grid wasn't down, I would probably stream this. Heh, that'd be like a free advertisement for Nile!"

"... didn't… isn't that company on strike?" Blake looked a little taken aback, her head cocked.

"What?"

"I'm looking it up right now, but I'm damn certain that company is on strike _right_ at this moment. Maybe not right now, but they were. Like, within the past few days."

"Oh, well… just because that happened doesn't mean we can't do this. Besides, I ordered this weeks ago, it only got here now."

"Yeah," Garrett said, "the package still got here alright."

"A lot of people are boycotting them right now, and even their streaming services. Oh, man… the list of grievances is pretty bad. It's been really bad with them for a while. No smoke where there isn't fire. And, to just casually say that, talk about a free ad… I mean, even if the network was still up, you still could have abstained from doing that. Or said something before you did… thought about... whatever." Blake was trying to keep her voice from shaking and keep her language clean.

"Do you _really_ have to bring that up right now?"

"... well, I _am_ a Faunus… and I have been _protesting_ for _workers' rights_ since I was a little girl… so… um… yeaaaaaaaahhhh… there's thaaaaaaat…"

The room felt very weird. A few people pulled at their shirt collars.

Bridget put up a hand. "I have an idea! You said you read books, right?"

"And that I am a protester, yes."

"Uh… ha ha! Well… do you know any stories off the top of your head?"

"Now you want me to be the center of attention and be hopefully entertaining."

"I'm just trying to get you involved in the conversation, is all. You don't have to rub the sides of your head so much. You know, you use less face muscles when you smile!"

"If you had to pick up a five hundred pound block, would you rather do it with more or less people…"

"What was that? I couldn't hear you."

"Nothing. Just thinking out loud. Same thoughts, over and over again."

Bridget smiled. "Are you trying to figure out what story to tell? Come on, telling stories is fun! It's always fun!"

Greg said, "Unless you're one of those people that's always a downer, are trying to act cool."

"Sippin' your wine and cheese while being edgy," said Garrett.

"Or maybe you just have something to say," said Blake. But, she did smile. "Okay, I have a story." She stood up. "Maybe you heard of it. It was written by a poor poet who died a long time ago. It's called 'Mask of the Crimson Death.'"

"Is it scary? It sounds scary…," Bridget looked a little worried, but was still smiling.

"To some people, yeah. But scary stories are fun. Let's do this, shall we?"

It had been a long time since Blake had read that story, but it wasn't the most complicated of plots. It revolved around a prince, a long time ago, back when there were still fiefdoms and the like. The peasantry was to till the land they lived on but didn't own; they were able to keep some crop, but most had to be paid as tribute, or more like rent, to the lord, which was the prince. His land was pretty vast, fertile, and prosperous; he would send his men to collect the crop, and may the gods help them if the prince was ever shorted. You just didn't mess with the upper classes; they were the law of that land, and could punish you as they desired. Sure, there was a king, but nothing was truly centralised in those days, and an emissary from the king would take weeks to get all the way out there.

If you owned the land, you had it all, including the people on it. People can be very brutal, and hierarchies always crushed the lower classes with their weight.

One day, however, there was a problem at one of the villages; more than a problem. An illness had arrived, called the Crimson Death. It caused a discoloration of the skin, especially in the face, and much bleeding from just about anywhere. It was highly contagious, and would kill painfully. It also spread incredibly fast, tearing through populations.

The prince had heard rumors that the plague was making its way from abroad; being proactive, he took incredibly large quantities of supplies from his peasants, much more than he usually did. The reason was he invited many nobles to come to his lavish estate; he wanted to start a party that would last as long as the plague did. The prince was going to lock up his gates, and ride the plague out; he was going to wait until it ran its course and nearly destroyed all the commoners outside his walls. The prince had a good laugh as he watched all those nobles flee like scared mice to his estate; he mocked them constantly, lorded his greatness and foresight and immense wealth over them all. The prince had gone from being the master of peons to the master of nobles, quite the leap; disobey the prince, and over the wall you would go, mixed in with the rabble that was banging on the castle walls, begging to be let in-until the prince ordered volleys of arrows fired into them.

The prince decided he wanted to have a grand ball, a masquerade! There was to be no limits, save for one: You were not to wear red, especially mask. The red faces of the victims of the Crimson Death greatly upset the prince, as well as any thoughts of mortality, which the prince had easily conquered with his castle walls. Everyone prepared, each looking to catch the favor of the prince with a grand costume.

The masquerade commenced, and the prince walked about the guests, when suddenly, at the stroke of midnight, a man wearing a long red robe and a face painted red was seen. The prince rushed up to the man and asked who dared to insult him so, with such blasphemous mockery. He ordered the man to be seized, but none were able to do so. The crimson man even passed right by the prince, who shrank away. However, the prince looked about, and realised that he had made a fool of himself within his own castle, and drew forth a dagger, chasing after the crimson man. The prince overtook him, but as soon as the confrontation was about to begin, there was a cry, the dagger was dropped to the ground, and the prince fell as well, dead of the Crimson Death. The other nobles panicked, and tried to lock themselves away, but it didn't matter. The Crimson Death had come. None survived. The plague held illimitable dominion over all.

Blake sipped at her tea in the quiet. She ignored the looks she was getting.

Some servant entered then. "Miss Blake?"

"Yeah?"

"The Baron will see you now."

"Thanks." She bowed to the others, and left the room.

As she walked away, it sounded like somebody said, "You know, people would pay to sweep the floors in this place," but maybe it was just her imagination.


	5. Lakeside Picnic

In the room stood Baron Basil Bartholomew Bartlett, founder of Phoenix Head, former ambassador to Anima, banjo player (as a joke) when he drinks with friends, plays some basketball for exercise, a bass when he sang in a choir as a boy, behind a ban on comm network monopolies, and also a ban on bacteriologists using bacteriophagy for military purposes, his own background in tech, baccalaureate, "fire-baptized in raisin' hell," one of his friends said once, his own bankability high, swims like a barracuda, pretended to be a balletomaniac on his first date with his late wife, now much too old for bacchanaliac mayhem even though he still is friends with people who aren't, barnstormed meetings of people in the tech industry, haircut barrelheaded, a man who liked banter, whose backstory was one of bringing oneself up in the world, his stomach starting to balloon as he got older, and ready to receive Blake Belladonna who thought this was all bathetic and whose shoulder was really hurting and lightly bleeding.

He has never played a bassoon.

Blake had a vague idea who he was, some major person in the Phoenix Head company. As Blake entered the room, he turned to her briefly, nodding, giving a more elaborate introduction, explaining he was the CCO or something, and said he would be with her in a minute. He turned back to a large wall screen; Blake wondered why he was only wearing what looked like jeans and some preppy kind of shirt. She stayed near the door, which someone closed behind her.

On the screen, a news report was playing, about widespread vandalism in the wake of much civic dissatisfaction with authorities over police procedure. As the anchor was talking, a picture of a sign along a highway was shown, heavily modified by a roving urban artist whose preferred medium was spray paint; a dude with a spray can. The sign now read:

SEE SOMETHING.

SAY SOMETHING.

YEAH, POLICE YOURSELVES.

WE'RE WORKING A LOT OF OVERTIME AS IT IS.

I MEAN, DON'T GET ME WRONG, I LOVE THE OT PAY AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE.

ESPECIALLY SINCE WE MOSTLY HANG OUT ON THE HIGHWAY PULLING PEOPLE OVER FOR WHATEVER REASON.

AND THEN YANK 'EM OUT TO LOOK FOR DRUGS WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE THERE.

OR MAY OR MAY NOT BE LEGAL SOON.

S(This part of the image was blurred) IS DUM EZ, YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

Somebody once said that, "Space is the breath of art." Whoever painted on the billboard thought that idea was crap.

The anchor said that people were upset about the lack of city security, all the way down to random shootings, as well as drug pushers making deeper and deeper reaches into the country, getting everyone hooked on downers. Law enforcement said they were fighting it, but it was being pointed out by citizens that the police were just arresting users, as opposed to the people actually pushing the stuff. Law enforcement said it was hard to pin down the people responsible. The people retorted that that's why law enforcement was hired to do the job in the first place. Questions were being asked about prescription drugs and they were being ignored. The Baron shut off the screen, saying how it seemed like the news seemed to have backed off the murder, finally.

He turned to Blake, who was still on the other side of the room. The large windows to the right made the area seem a bit bigger than it was, but it was still plenty big. There was a small fireplace, and he busied himself with it, and she figured he did this so she would see that he had a fireplace. The desk was all right. Whatever. There was a couch to the side, and a chair by it. She didn't want to sit across from the desk, so she half-lay on the couch and tried to stay awake. She didn't care about the bleeding. There were a few books on a shelf and a lot more knick knacks around and she groaned when she saw the civilian-issue drone and thought to herself that he was one of _those_ kinds of people. There were some digital cameras because many people buy a camera and then are suddenly photographers overnight; she even remembered her father doing that, taping and photographing _everything,_ and her mother would roll her eyes and her father would go on at length about how buying the damn thing was great for the family it would preserve everything and her mother had said yes dear and then Blake sat up and yawned; if she was going to dream she wasn't going to think about the stupid excuses her father gave for owning that damn camera. Though it was more interesting to think about then witness a man going gray trying to stay relevant and young but rubbing his money all over everything.

The Baron turned and looked out the window, drawing a breath. "I've got a nice place here." His eyes moved about, a bit restless.

Blake yawned again.

The Baron clapped his hands, turning off his desk lamp. A small robot came from somewhere and started vacuuming. Blake used this as an excuse to put her feet on the couch and stretch out; she was told to stop doing that. She complied and sulked.

He sat in the chair near her, folded his hands across his stomach, and regarded her carefully. "You've been getting into a lot of trouble."

"I'm not on the news, it would seem."

"You were, last night. Not your face, or your name, or the fact that you were using a false one, but what happened at Verdeman's place was a big deal. But you're not, anymore. I burned through a lot of favors for that."

"Gee, thanks."

"You should be _way_ nicer to me because of that. That cost a lot of money, and maybe even a contract. You don't just bury a story; there's too many people involved in publishing it. You're actively asking news agencies to lose money."

"How'd you even get a signal?"

"You can bounce around towers, some experimental satellites, but it costs thousands a minute to keep the signal going. When she-Verdeman-was killed, people at that party started sending messages via Scroll. The news spread like a whisper around a room; one person called another, then another, then another, and so on. The news jumped borders pretty quick; everyone thought, and actually still thinks, it was another terrorist attack, like the one that happened in Vale. You're still lucky I heard about it. They would have really run the works on you if you had stayed there."

"They already did a number on me. It's a good thing I can't afford a lawyer."

"You killed the lifeline to the town."

"I didn't _kill_ anyone!"

"I'm talking about how it looked. You have to realize that those people would be very upset."

"You're not supposed to do that to someone you arrest."

"You think they give a crap? Why should they? She was their community leader, even if there was separate mayor."

"You don't smack people around…"

"Nobody smacked you around. I listened to what the doctor said that you said. You got thrown. That was rough, but they didn't hit you."

"Are you seriously going to talk like that to me right now?"

"There aren't any marks on you except where you were shot. I'm just telling you how it is. It will sound the same to the lawyer you can't afford."

"Pfft."

"If you don't mind me asking… how old are you?"

"Nineteen."

"Seriously?"

She kept her mouth shut.

"Alright, nineteen. Man, that's too young for this."

"Enlistment age is eighteen."

"Most people who enlist and fight are a bit older, I think. Twenty-six. Also, enlistment is down."

She again said nothing.

Bartlett studied her, and she looked away, annoyed. He kept his eyes on her, taking the girl all in, and shaking his head. With a sigh, "What are you doing?"

"Surviving, I guess."

"That's not much of an answer, Blake Belladonna."

"You know my name, but not my age?"

"Somebody screwed with your records real bad. Maybe you did it yourself. I can't exactly call your parents and ask them."

She curled up a bit on the couch after taking off her shoes. She gave him a look, and he nodded. She lay back with her feet up, arms hugged around her knees, and fought to keep her eyes open.

"Do your parents have any idea what is happening to you?"

"...no. I cut ties with them when I went into the Fang."

"That's the White Fang, right? Sienna Kahn's group?"

"Yes."

"Gods…"

"Don't judge me, old man. You're not a Faunus."

"Look, I'm not judging you. I mean, they are terrorists, but you seem like…"

"They are _not_ terrorists!"

"...are you kidding me right now?"

"-"

"You're not still with…? okay. Okay, don't look at me like that. You aren't. I get it. But how could say that, after what happened?"

"...you're not a Faunus."

"No, I'm not, I'm curious."

"You wouldn't get it."

"Try me."

"Nope."

He sighed.

She looked right into his eyes. "I'm not exactly thrilled at being in the home of an Atlesian noble, you know."

"This is the safest place for miles. If maybe in the world right now, for us."

"What's this 'us' crap you keep talking about. Some dork in your parlor room hinted at that as well."

"Chances are we are all being hunted just by being lightly connected to all this. You saw what's going on, watched Verdeman… Sophia, get murdered."

"I didn't see anything."

"It doesn't matter. You were wanted for the killing of my sister in law."

"What? Your who…? Oh. Right. Yeah."

"My daughter's name is Bridget Verdeman; my son in law was murdered, and then his mother. I fear my daughter is next, and myself, and you and your... _friend-_ that little twerp. Anyway, that's why I bailed you out. That's why I paid off as many people as I could, ruining every favor I have with anyone in power or in the justice departments, especially the local PD. We're both in the same boat, and I need you on my side before she kills us."

"Who is she?"

"Don't be coy. You had to have seen her. You know _exactly_ who she is."

"...I have vague guesses. I don't want them to be right, because it is ridiculous."

"It's not. That wasn't the only prototype. But it was the only brain like that, nearly organic. The Polendina puppet."

A pregnant pause.

"...I watched her die. The whole world did."

"Well, yeah, the primary unit was deactivated…"

"Don't gimme that crap, Penny was alive, she had an Aura. That means a soul."

"So it's easier to think that your one friend murdered your other friend?"

"...what is wrong with you."

"I don't know what you'd want to hear in regards to that. What I do know is some idiot activated something they shouldn't have, and now it's tearing people up. In the same fashion, over and over."

"I don't buy this at all. This is stupid."

He flicked on the screen again. "While you were running around doing whatever over the past few weeks, I managed to get my daughter back up here after her husband was murdered. She chartered a pilot who didn't want to take her all the way back to Atlas; she'd run up to the man covered in blood. You could say the pilot was freaked out that a hysterical woman was begging to be brought to Atlas. She… she had no idea what to do except to run home. She got close enough to make a call to me, and I sent someone out to get her. I have no idea how she got away. At least from the building. Her home.

"This video I'm about to put on is footage from my daughter and husband's home, actually, in the City of Vale. It is rather disturbing. Now, look, right there. You see that? In that… hold on, let me enlarge that. There. That's a doorway to the basement. There is no footage in there; Verdeman had something going on in there, and that's the sun, Dennis, I mean. I don't think his mother knew anything about it. When Bridget ran, she grabbed up her Scroll, which usually synchs a bunch of data from the home security feed to its storage; I guess to go over it later, give people clues, I don't know. Dennis… was a strange man. And… I hate to speak ill of the dead, but the guy was an idiot. He only got to where he was through his mother. I don't think he understood security all that well. He was _very_ paranoid-the kind of guy that tapes every single conversation he has, saves every email, because he thinks he can use it, or something. He's extra-cautious because he doesn't want everyone to… didn't want… everyone to find out he was an idiot. Even though we all knew already." Bartlett sighed.

"That door… someone is smashing it in."

"I think you know what that is, Blake."

"How the hell is she in the basement?"

"They."

"...what."

"They. Them. There! See them! as they smash through!"

"What the hell?!"

"There were at least five or six units down there. Count 'em. One-two-three...four… and five. Gods, they move like pros. I can't believe they were combat ready. Ugh… this is when they start killing their way through the home."

They watched.

Blake said, "They… they really cut up every single one the same way?"

"It would seem so. There are a few times when they kill them first, quietly, then hack up the bodies, but it would seem they want to kill them all the same way, if it can be helped."

"At the waist, then split the chest, cutting away one shoulder, and then hack off one of the arms. Just how she was killed."

"It's remarkably similar. Not perfect every time, but as close as it can get."

"...turn this off. Please."

"No. I'll speed it up, because I want you to see the ending. Here. When they kill Dennis. I have to throw on the audio."

"...we would just serve you, huh? That's funny…"

"I order you to shut down… oh my god, leave her alone!"

"What, the girl? Your wife? I think I'll do her f-f-f-first. She'll have an audience, just like I did. You know how vulnerable it is to lay there like that? It has to be worse than being seen naked. You're reduced to being an object, something people recoil and turn away from in horror, and you wish they'd stop looking… bitch!"

"Run! Bridgett, run! Don't look ba-"

"Ugh, those sounds you're making now, Dennis, those gurgling sounds, can't you see they're making her stand there and watch? He's right, dear, you better run now while we're dealing with this. That's right. Run. And you, Dennis, can you still hear me? Of course you can. You creepy, creepy man. How you used us the way you did. It's so strange… I can see why I was supposed to stay at home. If I _ever_ figured out what you meatbags were all about I would have to be absolutely _insane_ to save you people. Wake up, Dennis. I know you're bleeding, sweetheart, but I'm talking, and that's just rude! Like how that green-eyed orange _bitch_ cut me up… why did she do that? She couldn't bear losing? I'm glad the walls around the city fell, I really am! To think I was supposed to protect you people… Stay awake, Dennis. I want you to feel me start."

"Turn it off or I will smack you, Bartlett."

He turned it off.

"She doesn't know why Beacon fell."

"It would appear she doesn't, but I don't know."

"...then why…?"

"I have a few other recordings from when the units were taking out some of my scientists, all over. She's been busy. It would seem that she might have learned what happened, but doesn't care. I mean, that girl… Nichas, whatever her name was, killed it for whatever reason, and then the White Fang swooped in…"

"Don't you think that is a little convient?! Don't you think there can be something more to it?!"

"Was Nichas…?"

" _Nikos!"_

"Calm down. Please, calm down."

"You… you think she wants to kill me…?"

"After going through her video manifesto? I think it just wants to keep killing until it is stopped, and is going after anything familiar in an attempt to ruin things. There's no real motive here. I think it also might want to terminate itself, which it's programming prohibits, so it's grabbing attention, attacking people that can attack back. Suicide-by-cop, in a sense. Regardless, I'm certain you don't want to see this continue, and while there are good soldiers out there, it would be better to have a specialist. To find a hunter, especially one willing to do this and quietly, would he next to impossible.

"Out of nowhere, you've become my number one go-to, my best way to eke out any success out of this, and you're crazy if you think I'm not going to use this to my advantage. She's your friend, right? Help me end this."

"There's no way…"

"You rather I send some random people to deal with this? And what if they get killed, because they weren't up for it? Let's be serious, here. The Atlesian soldiers couldn't even take out the Knights in Vale. Some huntress did it, is the rumor, took out the whole ship that was controlling them. And if _these_ units, the Mark Vs, disturb you that much…"

" _Her name is Penny…"_

"No, it's not. It doesn't even call itself that. It's not programmed to… none of them are. We gave them faces in case people want to interact with them, and they are all called Nicky. It's a pun… thank my daughter for it. The original unit's name was a pun, too. Ours is the Mark V. Silver hair was a coincidence… I didn't want them to look _too_ human. Something had to be made intimidating about them, something inhuman."

"Why Penny. Why do they look like that. And why are there more than one."

"That model's chassis-the Original's-is much more advanced than those shoddy Knights. It didn't need a brain. It just needed programming. I don't know what the hell they were thinking giving it, the Original, such computational power. Idiots. Seriously. Waste of resources.

"That old man… he had some kind of fetish for giving it a brain. I don't know why. You could accomplish just as much without an Aura. It didn't make any sense. Hell… I still don't buy it had an Aura, let alone a Semblance. There is no way it could."

"How are there more."

"There aren't. That wasn't the Primary in any function other than memory. That's why it's so… malformed? Mentally speaking, of course."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Okay, listen: there is only one that is 'perfect.' We didn't finish the footage… the one with the bow. We didn't get to that part, it comes in later. Here… look, that freeze frame. That's the Primary.

"The Mark Vs can communicate with each other, share battle data, move almost as one. If one unit is about to be attacked, blindsided, and another unit sees this about to happen, the first unit will then instantly know it is being surprise attacked, and deal with it, or share the data with another unit who is even closer and will help. It's very close to one mind being shared with multiple bodies, all working with the same senses and ideas on the what is going on.

"The Primary, the real head of this 'uprising' or 'revolt,' whatever you want to call it, is using that data-sharing system to get into the heads of the other units and influence them, control them. So, yes, there is only one patient zero for the memory infection… but a bunch more other units. And… um… the number grew a bit."

"A bit?! They had a Bullhound! And you absolutely aren't Penny's father, how in the hell… why are there more than one?!"

"That's correct. I am not her… really? Her _father?_ Whatever. I don't know what is going on with _him,_ the creator, but I know he is strange, more than a little insane, and desperate. His pet project cost millions, tens of millions, almost one hundred. Absolutely stupid. The chassis for the unit itself was just fine, I would know, we did some contract work on the parts. Oh, I _know_ he is going to say he designed the unit itself, but he didn't build it all alone. We have our own R&D that's more grounded in reality.

"Just look at your Scroll, any mobile device. That wasn't all built by one person, or company. There are literally _hundreds_ of individual patents at play in there. You could even ask aloud who really owns the rights to the damn things. Who really invented them? The same goes for that combat chassis, and we had a _huge_ hand in developing it. A massive contract.

"But It was completely unnecessary to give the unit-the Original… ugh, _Penny,_ whatever-enough brain power to think to that degree, to even generate an Aura. What was the point? So it would have a conscience? That's _exactly_ what we were trying to avoid. Average people don't want to kill, most times, and if they, your soldiers, can think, they can turn on you. Or become afraid. Or even over-zealous. It's better if they don't feel anything.

"After that original project was finished, the creator lost the bidding on any more contracts, or at least, the ability to do whatever he wanted. His little experiment was a little too weird for the military, for the Schools-even though the Heads would be out of a job, they always say they would _love_ a world where they don't have to teach children how to kill. The creator didn't care about these misfortunes. He had his little pet, which seemed to be his real objective the whole while. What a sick, sad man.

"We snapped up some of the loose contracts, and started working on a mass production model of the chassis. You, the White Fang… cutting right through those basic Knight models that guard Dust facilities. It just won't do. So, we needed something that could match the agility of our attackers, who are, what? Humanoid; our enemies were humanoid, and very fast. Why not mimic nature's greatest creation?

"So, we did. But without the capacity for an Aura. Sensibly."

She slammed two fists down on the couch. "But, why?! Why is she going around…?!"

"My son in law realized there were a few units in Beacon, never deployed, and he wanted to beef up his own defenses in the wake of the Fall of Beacon-probably wasn't thinking, just doing what felt natural, to an idiot, at least. He still had several properties within the EZ-actually, my daughter told me that her husband's mercenaries within the wall, before they were killed, reported that _someone,"_ and he pointed a Blake, "broke in and stole a bunch of her jewelry…"

"Those guys were killed?"

"About two days after you ripped them off. When you popped up in the news, we took a guess that you were the same person."

"You dragged me all the way out here on the _possibility_ I was the person who did that?"

"Yup. And you've since confirmed it, with how you're acting."

"...I figured you found out…"

"I did. In a way."

"Wait, how the hell did the Deep Six find me?"

An earpiece on the desk beeped, and putting up a finger, Bartlett put it in his ear, and murmured a quick conversation. After it was done, he walked back over to Blake and sat down.

"...oh, wow. I… talked to the doctor who is looking after your friend…"

"How is that jerk."

"That jackass is going to be okay as long as he doesn't fall asleep for a while."

"What's _your_ beef with him?"

"He stole my Bullhound and crashed it. He kept looking at me all pissed off when I testified against him. I haven't been to Vale since; you people have a _serious_ crime problem. Like with that Torchwick guy."

"...no comment."

"Mmm."

"But the Six?"

"Oh, _yeah,_ so they grabbed your friend, huh? That must have been Verdeman. By the way, your Scroll…"

"It was the Scroll then, after all."

"You tapped into sensitive information. My guess is that Sophia had an idea what was going on, probably had the same footage I showed you. I haven't talked to Bridget about it much; she's very sensitive. Always wants to be sunny. But I have no doubt she might have tried to contact Sophia. Besides, anything Dennis was a part of, Sophia oversaw. Though I'm doubting the idea to activate these units was her idea, or that she would even be for it. I think Dennis was just trying to protect what little he had, and used his mother's contacts to safeguard his stuff; first, with the mercenaries, then, with the units, because of the liability of having people inside the Wall."

"You've gotta be kiddin' me… his _stuff,_ his freaking _stuff_ was that important..."

"Bridget, on the few times I've talked to her about it, says that was the basic idea. Dennis didn't want to be liable for the mercenaries lives, and besides, only the most desperate people would take such a job. They weren't the best."

"They were stress-addled vets on the verge of a breakdown. And, now they're dead, anyway."

"...yeah…"

"If the building was worth guarding, then why didn't the Atlesian military get on that? If there was serious tech or something there, the military would have secured it; it's one of the things they have been up to, to make sure the White Fang don't find anything to use, or sell."

"That building was mostly just offices with their main living quarters, their apartment, not an R&D facility…"

Blake retched a bit. "Wait, where the hell was the footage from before taken then? It seemed that they lived in that building, but they weren't there…"

"They used to live there. But after the Fall, they were living in a summer home, out of necessity."

"Ah. And their original home wasn't important enough for the military to send men to…"

"So Dennis wanted to secure it himself, didn't want to risk-or trust-the men, so he went after those units, which I'm guessing there was a file or two sitting around; Bridget has her fingers in Phoenix's business, will be taking on more responsibility after I go, and I fear Dennis got his hands on something.."

"Why were there units in there before the Fall in the first place?"

"I was actually about to get to that before; those units were to be used in roping in the Original if it ever went out of control."

"You put a backup plan in place to capture Penny if she ever disobeyed. Did her father know?"

Bartlett coughed. "That unit was quite expensive. It also gave us an excuse to field test. Unfortunately, they, the Mark Vs, weren't entirely combat ready, and without the ability to synch with us here in Atlas after the Fall, utterly useless. The basic software that shipped with the units was horribly out of date. The units would not be too effective. Clumsy, poor aim, you name it.

"I don't know how that little turd did it, but he must have come across the Original's brain case…"

"Her head."

"Don't growl at me."

"He severed her head. Oh, God, Penny…"

"He dumped _all_ the Original's memories into one of the Mark V units, thinking he could jump start their thinking, give them the best combat data, except he rushed in and went _way_ past that with the upload. Those… those units aren't able to parse everything the Original could. They were never meant to understand emotions. The effects of… the units are insane. There is no way around saying that. They are all insane, acting without any true thought, and only being motivated by… I don't know. A basic mindset. They aren't truly thinking."

"They _taunted_ me…"

"Bugs in the code."

"No. They talk. They think. _She_ thinks. There seems to he a main Penny, or Nicky… or…"

"Brain. In that, you are correct. I believe it's the one with bow, the one I showed you before. There is a new Primary out of the MK Fives, broadcasting to other the units. It has to be short range. And there has to be a place where they dump their memories into some sort of computer. There is no way that the Primary can send instructions that far, over national lines, hell, even to the other side of a city; keeping a backup in some sort of server would be its best bet at survival; the other units could come home, and if the Primary isn't there, can plug into the server. It has to be that, because the Primary isn't at all the killings; she tries to stay out of sight, only popping up on occasion. Not one unit can parse all the information, as well.

"The main brain must upload simple instructions to the lesser units, to keep them as normal as possible, and as effective. If they all suffered like the new Primary, then they would have torn themselves to pieces by now. I think my son in law tried to dump the memories into one of the units, it woke up, and reacted."

"She wants revenge."

"It _thinks_ it wants revenge. It cannot feel completely; it is not _alive._ It has no Aura. It is only going through the motions. It's also obsessive. It's main victims follow the same patterns of cuts that were done to the Original. You can see here, on this diagram…"

"I know it already, thanks."

"Well, then… you understand what we are up against."

"Why me?"

"Why does she want to kill you or why do I want your help? Well, the units seem to harbor a hatred to the living masters that used them to death. That would include some of the White Fang, it would seem. A lot of their numbers are turning up dead. I'm putting the death toll for all this at close to twenty three. That's not counting who she has… it has killed at the lab; I'm always in contact with them, or, I was, and the team we sent to explore why it's suddenly gone dark? They're gone as well. Nobody knows anything about it now.

"And I need someone who can fight and keep it quiet. If this got out…"

"Oh, _screw you."_

"You have no money, no equipment, no place to hide, and I am the only one who can keep you out of jail. Glad we have an understanding. I want you to go to this mine, and grab these hard disks. It's shut down, so be careful inside. If we can go through those drives, we can start to find out where the main lab is. I think that is where the new Primary is hiding."

"...you don't even know where your own labs are?"

"No. Of course not. I'm a big, fat, kidnap target. It's my own policy. Two of my own personal bodyguards have been killed over the past three years, one of them only down the road from here. Besides, I'm not the biggest man in the company anymore; I've been stepping back as I get older. Not too much, but I'm not as active as I used to be."

Blake sighed. "Is this the only way we can do this?"

"Short of capturing one of the units and probing its mind, stealing the memory out of it, before it self destructs, and entirely in the field? No.

"Our company network is broken, and I'm, and everyone else here, is pretty much waiting for the units to show up here. I'm not going out. And neither are you and your friend. I'll keep both of you under protection. Well, you're going out. We have to find out where they are hiding and take it out before they show up here. The only reason, we can guess, as to why they haven't attacked yet, is that they want to get their whole strength together first."

"How many are there."

"One hundred, scattered around. She has been smashing her way through our networks, and comms are dropping all over. She may have activated the other units we had stashed around."

"You have lost control of an entire _company's_ worth…"

"The company has other projects…"

"Company as in three platoons. One hundred soldier robots. And you're not calling in the Atlesian military?"

"It can be handled in house. We have our own security and mercs. Plus you. If the company sinks, if I fail, so many people will lose their jobs. It's my duty…"

" _What?!"_

"I couldn't even reach them, the military, anyway; we can't afford to have them pull out their contracts. And if the company fails, I fail all the people that work for it."

"Oh my God! What the hell is wrong with you?! Do you have any idea how much of a risk you're taking…?!"

"Right now, the units seem fixated on us, VEG, though not so much anymore, and the White Fang."

"And if they go nuts and kill random people?!"

"It doesn't seem like they are going to do that."

"How the hell can you ever be sure?!"

"Didn't you just listen to what I was saying before? They haven't gone after random people."

"Yet! _Yet!_ You only care about saving your own ass! Ugh! I hate Atlas! I hate you people!"

"Wow… that's, um… wow."

"What is wrong with you people?! People are freaking _dying_ and you're worried about your company?!"

"If all this collapses because of what some random idiot, that stupid son-in-law of mine did, how is that fair to the people who rely on these paychecks to feed their goddamn families?! Can you tell me that?!"

"Oh, don't gimme that crap that you care about your workers! You're the ass who doesn't put yellow in his factories because you think the color is icky! I know who you are!"

"What? There's yellow in there."

"Barely any! I saw those stupid pictures you put up in the wake of that fiasco. That would work on somebody who's never been in a factory; the damn guidelines on the ground aren't even yellow on the gray of the goddamn floor. You're supposed to paint the bases of support columns yellow so the forklift guys, who are zipping around in low light in a place that is all gray and white, can see where the hell they are!"

"You're really gonna bring up the color yellow, now?"

"I hear there isn't real good training in your plants."

"Oh, what the hell are you talking about now?! All our new guys take part in a training program that lasts, like, four days! It's where they learn the basics of working in a plant, safety regs and ergonomics. We have a whole place for that! This all happens before they ever even step foot on the factory floor! And once they do, they continue to receive on-the-job training to ensure they're working safely. We mentor!"

"I _know_ what you are talking about. _You_ don't seem to get who I am and how well acquainted I am with being on a floor. This program you're talking about is, lemme guess, a series of stupid videos? And then…"

"They're _great_ videos! We spared no expense! We got Leonardo Lionheart to narrate! We also show them how to hold tools! And… like… they play on a computer with machine stuff… it works!"

"Except people who play video games aren't good at shooting people. But if they play your stupid computer crap? they are good enough for the floor. So I guess computer stuff can't make people do things-except when you say it can.

"Also, I've seen plants where they train for a week and it isn't enough. And 'four days' could mean they are there for an hour or two per day. Unpaid, possibly. You never said they were paid.

"Anyway, I was saying. They wander out onto the floor with corporate propaganda bouncing around inside their heads-because that's what all those videos really are-and that doesn't tell you how to run a damn machine. Even machines of the same type have different quirks, they haven't been repaired the same, and sometimes have been fixed with what was around instead of ordered parts."

"We _only_ use the correct parts to repair!"

"They are just _telling_ you they are because they need to get the damn machines back up to meet quotas. If the numbers aren't met their jobs are on the line; so, they cut corners, and everyone looks the other way. If it breaks, well, then it _clearly_ was the _worker's_ fault for breaking regs. I know how it works, I've seen it. And you can _never_ trust management. They aren't on the floor. Any time I've seen management on the floor everyone is on edge, not just about getting fired, but because they know the suits are going to touch something and freaking break it. Or get themselves killed.

"You know what it's comparable to? The military. I remember talking to an Atlas veteran, and he said the military isn't run by generals, it's run by sergeants. A lieutenant sometimes is just a jackass who will kiss butt, doesn't know what he is doing, a college boy, and the sergeants have to make sure everything runs smooth. The military-and the cops, no matter what they say-also stick to quotas, and look how good that did them in the jungles during the Faunus War. They just carpet bombed and sprayed Fire Dust and gasoline on the jungle, counted the bodies, and figured their work done. Well, they lost. The real issue was never addressed; they never understood the people they were fighting. They lost again when they pulled the same crap in the desert. They lost the war on drugs. And it's because some idiot in the air conditioning thinks he knows what he is doing, because people in offices-and morons online-think numbers are sexy, and the be-all end-all.

"How the hell are _you_ any different? Or your plants? It's the enlisted men versus the officers, all over again. No, scratch that. It's the people actually doing the job taking orders from idiots that surround themselves with pie charts, declare that they are in the future, and therefore are able to do anything.

"And then there's an accident and the workers are yelled at.

"And then young me is tear gassed. Good job." She held her arms out, like she was about to give a wide hug, except her hands were open and flat. She then brought her hands together, making slow, booming claps. "Good goddamn job, dude."

"Where in the hell are you pulling this from?"

"Oh, I don't know, I'm a Faunus in a mansion and it's pissing me off."

" _Your parents_ live in a mansion."

"...I cut my ties with those cowards…"

"What?"

"I said I cut my ties with those cowards a long time ago. I'm not going back. Ever."

"You would really cut them out of your life like that?"

"Yes."

"Fine, stare me down. You're full of all that White Fang crap…"

"Which my parents were a part of…"

"But you don't even think for a second at what _I_ do and how I help people, the stuff this company makes that helps people get through their day; and even the things I do outside of it! Hell, we've been working on making all kinds of tunnels to ease the traffic in the cities here! And with our cars that use less resources-I ought to show you mine, it's awesome," and Blake almost puked, "can go through those tunnels with minimum emissions and…"

"Who gives a flying crap about tunnels?! How about the people who can't afford a goddamn car and take public transportation, which is horrendous! Other countries are proud of their public transport, but not us! We would rather cut out the people who maintain it and privatise it, cutting up the city like goddamn cyberpunk fiefdoms! What the hell is wrong with you? Maybe we needed a break from global comms, because all it's doing is cyber-balkanising people; you have _no_ idea on what it's like for other people, do you?"

Bartlett snorted.

Blake tilted her head. "Wait a minute. Hold up. When your daughter was showing me around, she pointed out that you had some kind of camper. And I've seen two fireplaces here. And I think the camper has a fireplace."

"You aren't going to throw blood on my clothes, are you."

"I just think it's a little bit funny, is all. It's like you just chase fads, like those two aging rich guys who have their own space programs. I guess that what seems to be the thing to do now if you're rich and going through a midlife crisis.

"God help you if I see one of those flamethrowers here."

"...it's not a flamethrower, for one thing."

"Are you being serious right now."

"It's _not_ a flamethrower."

"That guy is against the idea of unions, you know."

"Unions screw up construction."

"What, for your goddamn tunnels."

"And the airport!"

"...who gives a sh…"

"A lotta people have to use airports! A lotta people travel!"

"It's expensive as hell to… you know what? I don't care. Travel all you want. That's the least important thing to bitch about. I mean, it's part of your job. That would just be petty. You pay your taxes?"

"...good God, what is wrong with you. I'm not an idiot, of course I do. And before you keep moaning, I just want to point out that the standard of living is going up, and the level of technology is fantastic. You can lose a limb and go out and buy another!"

"You should have seen where I came from. My desk-which is probably gone, now-came from the side of the street. Look at your friggin' desk. Your goddamn camper. Some people sell drugs to make some quick money, which is stupid, because there is almost no money in that, doubly so now that some stuff is going to get legalised. They're desperate enough to try, anyway. I wonder what's going to happen with private prisons when it does get legalised; who are they going to fill them with?"

"You literally went from a desk to private prisons in about five seconds."

"The general theme was consistent, believe it or not. People are poor, and you can turn the lights off in here with sound. Honestly? I think that the gap is growing. _Extreme_ poverty-making about one lien and ninety cents a day-is dropping, but other levels of poverty are _growing-_ also, the rate that extreme poverty was dropping is flattening _._

"When some people have cars that drive themselves and others are walking because they have no choice? What the hell is that? Yes, the poor now are better off than the poor from back then, but it's still a garbage existence. And the last major industrial revolution? You know, the one that came after people fought a war about enslavement? Well, their standard of living was going up from previous eras, but, gods, that doesn't mean it was a happy time. The same old talk about living in the future was trotted out then, as well. And people were living in goddamn tenements, and breathing soot, and there were no food and safety regs, and they were getting sick, so they, hey, would you look at that? started going on strike, and protesting. And the bosses hired private mercs to come in and union break. Take your 'future' and stuff it; nothing has changed. We aren't living back then, in the same filth, but the attitude, and the _gap_ between us, is still there. And people are still getting screwed.

"You know one of the Schnee kids went to our School? She had all kinds of Dust, all the elements at her fingertips, and there was this other dorky blonde guy there with his father's old sword and shield from the damn War. Stand those two side-by-side. The sheath for the sword was actually the shield, just collapsed, which is a technological milestone when compared to how weapons used to be forged, but what the hell is that compared to someone who can summon the power of fire whenever the hell she wants? Who's getting killed first, you think?

"Yes, the poor now have phones, and screens, but _you_ have a home with cleaning robots that will do what you want them to do, and probably to the sound of your voice. There is a _huge_ goddamn gap there; how long until you're levitating around? Or shooting crap into space out of boredom…? Oh... wait. _They're already shooting stuff into space._

"Even movies are being made with three hundred million budgets. It all does tie in, sort of; you're all so goddamn clueless it's more than a little distressing. Seriously. I'm sorry that me being aghast annoys you, and that building a stupid tunnel isn't going to fix it.

Yes, there are worse places to live, yes, there are worse periods of time to live, _but I still have to literally bleed for what I need._ All over your stupid, fancy couch."

"You need to lighten up."

"Sure. I'll just quit my job and… I don't know, be a star in a goofy cartoon mock-up of life here in Remnant. Gods, that would be sick."

"Pfft. Knowing your pretentious butt, you'd probably just rip-off that _Cerulean Velvet_ movie, and try to be clever and ironic."

"... okay, actually, yeah, I think that's pretty apt. Accidently genius."

"Good grief. Of course you would say that."

"I think I would have to be on drugs to sit through an idea like that though. I am a sober person."

"Really now? You could have fooled me."

Nope. Totally straightedge. Have been for a few years now. It makes any free time last forever, and there is a lot of it. I fill it with cleaning and trying to convince people that I'm not that old yet.

Bartlett shook the confusion out of his head, and turned back to Blake. "Anyway, things are absolutely getting better, even if it seems like things are falling apart at first. It's just growing pains.

"Like… there used to be this noodle place in town." He held up his hands for emphasis. Of something.

"-"

"-"

"...what."

"You know, a noodle place! Noodles!"

"I'm familiar with the concept of noodles."

"Well, it closed down."

"...yeah?"

"They couldn't afford the property tax on their building anymore. It's a symptom of more people moving to the area, of the values going up."

"Uh-huh…"

"And I can't help but think about how that relates to everything that the company has done; everything we do revolves around longevity."

"Wait… what? _Your_ company?"

"Yeah!"

"-"

"I said," and he cleared his throat, "Yeah!"

"I heard you."

"Well, let me explain."

"I really shouldn't…"

"Anyway. Longevity. You know, you can have some of those finger sandwiches the help brought in. And please stop staring at him as he walks away. Thanks.

"Longevity. I've watched a lot of things change over time. I've been doing this for a long time; forty years is a long time. I could talk about how the local town is so cool for at length. But, there's kinda a 1 downside, to, being part of something, that's, really cool, and really popular, because, by definition, something that's, very popular, is, getting bigger, and more people are getting interested in it, and, for a city that means more people move there, and things change.

"And this really hit home for me when I saw that this, noodle place, was shutting down. It was a weird little place, run by a funny guy who used to feed all the cats around there, I mean, they were all over the place all the time. He had a weird little chibi picture of himself on the sign of his building, it was very weird, but pretty authentic and kitschy for the area. But, they said they are closing, which is just a symptom of the town becoming bigger, greater, better, and more people are moving here.

"You know, and I can't help but think of that in terms of we do at our company, because we are all about longevity here. And one thing I have learned is that tech and the comms network and everyone on it _demands_ progress, and _hates_ change…"

"That's… that's just people in general."

"Hm?"

"Like… I guess the idea of 'progress,' or the definition of that word, varies from person to person. Like… a farmer loves the idea of machines that make their work faster, but hates the idea of culture and stuff changing. Actually… people just hate change. A lot of people want the _same_ stuff _faster,_ until they grow out of it… Whatever. Young people like change. And then they don't, because they aren't young. But… whatever. Anyway, your idea of 'progress' sounds like your company expanding… which is kinda funny, because your company sticking around for all this time isn't change at all. Like… you've personally progressed… but you still do kinda the same thing. Not _exactly_ the same thing, but similar."

"...are you just doing that to put a hole in what I'm saying for the heck of it."

"Maybe? No. I don't know. It's just… your idea of what 'progress' is seems localised to you and other people in that field. Like… you doing good isn't the same as what _I_ consider doing good. Like, with the Faunus and stuff. That's what I call progress.

"That's why I'm stuck on this noodle stand thing, I think. No, I _know_ that's why I'm stuck on it. Forcing an old business to shut down with a changing demographic… how is that connected to you? How in the hell does that have anything to do with _you?_ I honestly find it frightening that you would compare the two, to think that things changing like that, to a person losing their business to what you are doing, and put it under the header of 'progress.' There is something perverse about that. As in, _you_ and people that think like _you_ succeeding are the definition of 'progress,' as in the de-facto definition, for everyone; it's almost like how some people say they are mandated by God. I guess in a day and age where people are less and less religious we look for other forms of divine mandates; all hail someone else's idea of the 'future.'

"The worst thing is, I honestly can't tell from looking at your face as you're saying this, that either:

"A. You really believe this is all progress. That people are expendable, or deserve to fail because they don't fit in with whatever the idea of 'progress' is at that point in time.

"B. You are just processing too much at once, and are speaking in a way that makes sense to you right now, but you really haven't actually thought about what you are saying.

"I'm not trying to be nice to you right now because you let me eat three-quarters of a tray of finger sandwiches over the past two minutes-um, uh, can I get a drink?-but… I can't tell with you. I really can't. It's driving me nuts.

"Who the hell are you?

"When it comes to your or anyone else's recent successes: you didn't figure out Relativity to Time. You didn't disprove a flat planet. You made a business. That in itself is actually _really_ impressive… I can't do that. I'm a screw up, and I am a screw up when I'm still plenty young. I'm going to have to live with that the rest of my life. I really am a bit jealous. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be a real person. But, god _damn,_ sir-and I don't say that ironically-you have an inflated sense of self-purpose. Good on you for all you have done. But you aren't the shining beacon of the universe. Cripes, dude." She rubbed her eyes. "And you freaking talk _so much,_ and I have to parse _all of it,_ and it takes _so long…_ I'm not even going to try and claim I've caught all of it… who has the time? Cripes…"

"Look who's talking now…"

"I mean, hell, before you talked about paying your taxes because you're not an idiot. As in you just don't want to get into trouble, not at all that you believe the money does any good. And you never expressed a lack of faith in schools or anything, in order to justify this way you think. It just never crossed your mind. Taxes are a nuisance."

"Oh, dear sweet gods, you're college age, please, _please_ don't start talking about socialism or commu…"

"I'm not. Or… I'll try not to. I don't have much faith in that crap anyway, or any system. I'm not against having a system, either, just that it won't solve every problem, though it is still nice to have, for obvious reasons. But the idea that one system of government will do fantastically better than another? It's like having faith in the God that hasn't given me much of anything up to this point. It's why I've always taken matters into my own hands. To sit back and do nothing would be to have faith. I clearly do not."

"...speaking of faith, what is wrong with us advancing in the first place? Okay, you say that businesses are in it for the money. But what about the governments? The very order you stand against?"

"I don't stand against any order…"

"Don't gimme that crap. You absolutely do. Look at all the crap you went through to get here, and how _bad_ it is in Vale. I know you say we don't know about your side of things, but from where I sit, all the people connected to that 'society' have done a royal job so far.

"You're all wrapped up in your own ideologies already, running against one another. How many people have to die? What's so wrong with an outsider taking a shot, making things a bit easier?"

"Corporations have no real ideology; I don't care if it was a company making medical equipment, trying to fund itself. It also funds its investors. It's not about charity first, it's about profit first, and charity maybe comes later, something down maybe to weasel out of taxes or guilt. They have no real reason to defend anyone because as long as someone wins out, even if they kill off a whole group, a corp can sell to the winner-as long as they keep the rights of their businesses. If that is ever in jeopardy, then they will fight. It's why I'm worried about companies maybe hitting one trillion lien; with that kind of power, they can be a threat."

"It's nice that you calmed down somewhat, Tabby, but you keep talking about the groups that employ people like they are evil. Look at what extreme ideologies have done, and they don't pay their people; they buy their progress with their follower's blood, and the blood of others…"

"If you go that route, I feel it's very similar to the old way of thinking about religion, that it is the cause of all war-except now with ideology. It's stamping out thinking. We fought a colorful War all about that."

"You can't deny what all these groups striving for perfect governance has done…"

" _I'm_ striving for equality. Government? I don't know; I feel more than I think, even if that sounds weird, or even stupid. Maybe that's not true. I don't know. I guess I lean left… oh, who am I kidding, I'm left as hell, it's super obvious. Sometimes you have to strongarm people into doing the right thing. Yeah, that sounds scary as hell…"

"Sounds like the White Fang."

"...but it's what the police are supposed to do when they make sure we don't steal from and kill each other. It's how things already are. Religions even set up rules like that.

"I guess the government is supposed to help people, watch out for them. We pay the taxes, after all. And now companies get rates slashed for themselves, make it so you can't deduct damage a storm does to your property from your taxes, unless it was declared a natural disaster by the kingdom. So much for a smaller government. There was that terrorist bombing at that marathon, years ago, and the Treasury didn't call it a terrorist act, so only about half of the terrorism insurance claims got paid out. It didn't matter if the King called it a terrorist act, the Treasury had to. And they didn't.

I guess that's why I joined the Fang; this is going to sound dumb, but I believe in public service, helping people, and that's what they were doing before they well kill-crazy. It's why I'm a huntress. And as warped as this sounds, _how the hell else am I supposed to do what I want to do?_ I guess I could join the military or police, but I don't know. Firefighter. Whatever."

"Why the hell don't you."

"...I don't know…"

"You say I have a lack of faith, or only have faith in some techno-god, but who the hell are you, girl?"

"Being a firefighter doesn't help the Faunus…"

"Neither does being a huntress. You chose to make your living with a gun."

"That is not it!"

"Really? You like telling people what to do, then? What is your deal?"

"I really don't care what people do with their lives, and I don't think I know what is best for them."

"Could've fooled me."

"They can do whatever. The whole reason we go out and fight and eventually are killed-because there is a difference between dying and getting killed, where one of those is forcing death on someone else, and the victim is at the mercy of someone utterly destroying them…"

"When it's legalized, I hope you partake, put on some good tunes…"

"...and since I've almost been killed I can tell you nothing is more horrible than your life being a fragile thing in someone's hands, and all you can do is watch-to give them an opportunity."

"You will go way off the rails so I know just how _hardcore_ you are."

"We don't need to tell them what to think, or do, or have anything automated that tells them who they can or can't marry; what scares me the most these days is that there are people that are either socially left or right but they all think the government needs to step in and mandate everything."

"Isn't that hypocritical to what you were saying before? You would mess with someone's business, rip money out of them…"

"Corporations aren't people. Sure, they are owned by people, but they have more power than the average person, even someone who just wants to go plinking with an assault rifle. That's why one of those should be looked at and monitored more than the other. Figure out which yourself.

"People who are leaning left are more concerned about regulating the amount of soda we drink these days, instead of doing something in the name of free communication, which is to put the information about it out there so we can decide ourselves…"

"Yeah, and what about smoking?"

"... smoking got out of hand because of what companies were doing and had to be regulated. They were using cartoons to market them, for crying out loud…"

"And soda doesn't?"

"Cigarettes are way worse than soda. There isn't even a comparison. Neither is good for you, but come on, man; besides, there are labels on food now, and we had to fight like hell to get that to happen.

"Nowadays, I'm more worried about how we sling around either ideas that are either culturally more right or left, and then we make those ideas synonymous with companies, burying a company deeper into our own mids, and, funny enough, like how they did with cigarettes and fast food.

"People are willing to side and be more compassionate towards a company that is closer to their social views. Aspirational branding. I read that in a book once, can you believe that? A book on who to run a business in the future. Those kinds of brands create positive feedback; customers feel good about the products; become increasingly _proud_ to be part of a larger, virtuous movement; helps lower costs, improves effectiveness 2... I can only recall so much here. I know the guy who wrote that did things at Cybernetic University, and I heard they were having problems with how women were being treated, including some astronaut sexually harassing someone at that place. But what a surprise, eh? You put on airs about social issues, and then you have a mess like that. Nice. Just because a company is for gay marriage doesn't mean they have your best interest at heart. They'll give a crap about you a little bit if you are part of their company, their clique, their social hierarchy; but otherwise, it's only a way of using social issues to get people on their side. Nobody who is a part of that clique ever talks about that one old metal band singer who is gay. Because he isn't in their clique.

"Look at that company that is using that former athlete's face to sell it's shoes, so it can continue to donate to conservative groups.

"Look at that narrative video game company who recently closed down, that had progressive leads, and was treating their workers like crap. Hell, they aren't even paying out severance.

"We live in a new world that had its foundations shaken by acts terrorism. People are running towards the groups that are being the nicest towards them. A government is only really nice around election time, and the rest of the time it's doing business. A company is always trying to sell you something, which is why people are so forgiving of it, even after a financial crisis. Maybe not banks, but banks aren't trying to sell you stuff, they don't try as hard. But otherwise, it's almost like a very abusive relationship. And people, workers or not, get it all the way to the base of the shaft.

"It's like we expect absolutely _everything_ to be handed to us, and we are always to be coddled, have sweet nothings whispered at us, and we don't get that a shill is the only person willing to do that. It's not real. It's like praying to the gods to help you win a lottery, or help you find your keys. You can't tell someone that the gods work in mysterious ways in this current state of things, that they actually might _not_ help you, or even _love_ you; whoever you said that to would have a stroke. People _know_ they are loved, and knowing is not at all the same as having actual _faith_. Faith is nonsense; it's believing in something when you _don't know_. If you _know,_ you don't have faith. And everything is a sham. And that cultural viewpoint is seeping into every aspect of our lives. You simply don't ask what you can do for your country, you ask what your country can do for you. And the shills are just sitting there, willing to shill. And it's _both_ the right and left that are lapping it all up."

His face was hard. "And what the hell have you done? What charities have you started? How many people you kill, Blake?"

"...I haven't killed anyone…'

"Has anything you've done led to anyone getting killed? Huh? What have I done? Okay, somebody took my robots and sent them out of control. I couldn't see that coming. There were ways to be more careful. _But it was the White Fang who started this chain of events._ And you were a part of them."

"...like, when it comes to workers getting paid fairly and stuff, and how people call them lazy for wanting things…"

"You're actually going to ignore me. Gods. What have you done before you met me…?"

"Like… I know you gotta do what you gotta do to get the job done. Hell, I've gone and done it, just to get here, and even before all this mess we're in now. But the whole 'you gotta do what you gotta do' thing is what the White Fang uses to justify what they do, and is what companies do to justify screwing over their workers, and on, and on.

"I'm no little flower, despite the name, and I'll keep doing what I have to do, but I'm doing it so we don't have to have it so bad in the future. I'm not freaking stupid. It's never going to become magically super-easy. It will always be rough, and this isn't a world for old people, but it doesn't have to be nearly as hard as it was, or is. We can make small steps of progress. And I'm not suggesting we take away all the money somebody has earned; if they worked for it, fine, they made it. The opposite is what a 'Tabby' would want. You could stand to give out and help, which you…"

" _Which we do, how many charity drives you ever do…"_

"Yeah, I was saying that, let me talk…"

"You talk a lot. It's a lot to parse."

"I don't want to cut up everything for some stupid paradise, I just want to make sure all people aren't getting screwed, and I want to have my own life that isn't invaded by the government so much or companies that keep demanding of me. Maybe that's whiny. Screw it. I'm a whiner. But I've also gotten my ass handed to me, shot, stabbed, beaten and arrested, so I want to turn that stuff down a few notches at least _a little,_ but I guess that seems to be a lot to ask, all of a sudden. I don't want to have to hand my life completely over to a cause or nation or company; I can be loyal, hell, maybe even a damn patriot, and I'm willing to work, but I'm not giving up _everything._ Give me a little. My station is lower, I don't earn as much, and in many people's eyes that somehow makes you worthless or a loser these days, but there are different ways to be rich, to get what you want. It all isn't about the size...yes, that is a poor choice of words, but I don't need a huge house or a nice car or anything; if I did, I would have stayed home, went to a different school. My family has enough money to squeak by and ride out the storm, the storm that goes on for other Faunus, but I don't do that. And I'm not going to. Ever."

"...what do you want after you get this equality thing."

"Huh?"

"Have you even thought about that?"

"...there will still be things to do…"

"You picked a fight with something that may never go completely away, or can always be construed to being there, so you feel like you always have a purpose. You'll always fight. Admirable in some ways, but not in many others. You picked a path that offers no future because you might die, and if you don't die, then what? You see? Look at the window, your reflection there; you never, _ever_ thought of that, Blake, of what comes next. What happens if you have kids? Fall in love? Do you _know_ what you will be asking of them if you keep on this same path? It's not the money that corrupts you-and I say 'corrupts' because that's what you think of it as-it's everyone and everything you _love_ that gets you. You don't know what it's like to have your child look up at you and just _love_ you for no reason. Unconditionally.

"You haven't been sitting in front of a birthday cake that says forty on it. Don't start babbling about people who can't afford a cake-I said shut up. It's horrifying. Not because 'Oh no, I'm getting older, I have love-handles and my hair is changing color, I might need to get hair plugs, my penis might stop working' or whatever, and women have their own aging problems, but it isn't only that, the idea of your body getting old, at all. You sit down and look at that cake and realize you never, _ever_ thought you were gonna make it here. There's a quote from a book, written by an author I like, 'He'd been ready to die and now he wasnt going to and he had to think about that.' _5_ I hate that line, because it's true in the book, and out of that book's context and in the context of your own, simpler life; it resonates with me, especially since 'he' is travelling with his kid. It hits _super_ hard; because you meet people and love them and you care about so many things, and you can't bear to lose them. That isn't entirely what that line is about, but you can apply it to _so much._ You run through your early life thinking you care about things, and then you stop and realize how stupid you were for doing that. And it was stupid; there are some things that can't be taught, they got to be learned. That sounds like crap to someone who is younger, but at some point, you gotta realize that you barely know anything, and are probably going to die old and still not know anything.

"The way you're going, you will always have to be alone, throw aside every single thing you love, because you're only fighting for _you_ and the satisfaction _you_ get from being the heroine to other people; gods forbid that you let them figure anything out themselves. And I don't think you can live on like that. Haven't any of your teachers ever brought this up with you? What are you doing? Everything I have is because of what you were saying, I want things to be better. Sure, it's only my family, but I also pull people into this company and give them a way to live. What they do with it is up to them."

"I still don't agree…"

"Yeah? Well, when your stomach starts getting bigger and you're feeling kicks, think about this moment. Call me. I'd be delighted to hear what you have to say. There is only so much crap a person can take before they want out."

"You got yourself out."

"What the hell do you want me to do?! Not everyone can even freakin' _get_ out, or _wants_ to! You _can't_ save everyone, and I really gotta wonder if you picked this fight _because_ it was eternal, and you want to feel something about yourself!"

"... I… I still… still… I still t-t-think," he handed her a napkin, "there is still a point… no you can't save everyone. I don't know what I'm doing. It's always going to be awful.

"'Goodness… you got to make it out of badness… because there isn't anything else to make it out of."

"That quote isn't connected with what you're saying. Actually, the character that said that isn't the kind of guy you would like. And again, it sounds like something the White Fang would say…"

"I'm taking it and making it my own, because there isn't anything else to make stuff with. Everything is awful but I'm going to try and see the light in it. You can only see the stars at night."

"You're running."

"...don't say that to me…"

"But you are, though.

"You say I isolate myself, my company, my _clique,_ whatever, but you walk your path alone, inside yourself."

"I stand for…"

"That's crap! And you know it! Talking about reaching out, and you don't talk unless it's to put anyone down. Who the hell are _you,_ anyway? Someone with a bunch of childish ideas that will never, _ever_ work, sleepwalking through your life while I'm actually trying to _do_ something here, and are living in the _proof_ that I did do something! But you're quick to criticize when you've had your whole life to do something good and you haven't. You aren't back there, trying to help out inside the Wall! You're _here,_ bitching at _me._ "

"-"

"-"

"-"

"I… I'm… sor… gods… this stupid, _stupid_ world…"

"...even if… even if I… oh… gods…," a study of her arm, "even if…

"I'm… flawed…

"If we all are…

"We can't just… _run away_ and hide in the bosom of technology, okay? Forget about me, for just a second…"

"I can't."

"...Fine, I'll even respect that, but I'm going to talk. All this technology you're making is mov-moving past the point of human reaction time, which is dangerous. It's why we have ssspeed limits on roads; sure, it was about conserving resources at first, but it turned out to be a great boon for safety. It's w-why we want self-driving cars in the first place. But that means we have to trust the work of a programmer, a person who isn't p-perfect and therefore their code isn't going to be, either. And that machinery and code will work so fast it will make mistakes faster than anyone has ever even seen before, come to all kinds of conclusions before we can react. These conclusions are going to end up r-reflecting the thinking of the people or organisations that m-made it. Look at the stock market crash that happened earlier this year. Remember that? The crash that wasn't a crash. What ended up happening was a bunch of AI stockbrokers all decided to sell at once, due to their algorithms. It made everything look like it was a raging tire fire; later that day, we finally figured out what the hell h-happened.

"Ugh, my nose was running… _is_ running… ew… I hate it when...

"What if this kind of AI made the wrong choices? H-How long until we caught and fixed it? The amount of faith we would need to have for systems like that rivals the average person's belief in religion; even the most faithful don't expect the gods to get them through _everything._ Even if they would want Them to. We, as mortals, know our place in the universe, and accept it. But the faith in this machinery made by p-people exceeds that, all the way to the point of cult zealotry; it's asinine. Insane. Digitized egotism disseminated across the comms network."

"That's a harsh way to put it."

"That's why I said it.

"I'm sorry.

"I don't have faith in this new… I don't know, t-techno god you're trying to birth. Yeah, whatever, I'm being hyperbolic, you aren't trying to actually build a god, but your faith in this crap borders on the religious. It's crazy. It's like you don't have any real idea on this technology, what it is, when all it is is just _tools!_ Maybe the tech can be used for good, and when Penny was made, it kind of was; an old man wanted a daughter, as possibly perverted that could be in some people's eyes, it is something that can be seen as sweet, as well. Because Penny was a _person._ There still is the chances of high irri-irresponsibility in her creation, but she was a _girl_ that had a _soul._ _You_ people are standing on the shoulders of that man's genius and trying to turn a profit for yourself, and now that empty puppet of a person is running amok and is _angry,_ if you can even count what it's overloaded brain is processing as not errors on code but actual emotions. Her corpse was going to be danced around for profit and recognition. And now _I'm_ being dragged through it, forced to go through stuff that I shouldn't, and I can't even tell if I am acting like myself anymore. I don't even _know_ who or _what_ I am in all this. And it's all because of a conflict between _you people_ and somebody else, maybe more than one other person, and _none_ of you involved can see further than your own interests and how this can hurt even anyone who is just watching any of this; the things that are getting d-dragged out here are the very kind of things that will change perceptions, possibly. And for what? Money? Recognition? To fit in? Or just being petty and wanting to hide behind me and strike at somebody? Can any of you see what the hell you've done, and what this doing to the memories of people who have died? It's so… damn… _selfish…_

"My life used to be much simpler…"

"No, it wasn't. You've run around yourself getting involved in this and now are thinking it's somebody else's fault. You've gone through life thinking you know what the real world is and now are right on the cusp of realizing that nobody ever really understands it all the way. You put yourself out there. It was inevitable that this would happen. A-All because you weren't aware of what could happen, and that you could even get caught between two conflicting ideas. You're acting like a child."

"But… look, no matter who _I_ am, if we were to only follow and put our trust entirely in company's and their damn algorithms and only look to with respect those who 'succeeded' _we two would have never met, because, logically, as according to trends and computers, we should never,_ ever _be in the same room, because we are from two different groups, in a world where people are becoming increasingly separated based on minor traits._ 'No man is an island unto himself…,' you cannot separate people like that, unless the end goal was to destroy nations-that's melodramatic, but screw it, I'm feeling weird right now; but all you would be doing is redrawing the lines in our own home;ands, shrinking away from many people who don't think like you, and only working with others like yourself. It would be another disaster like that one city, Galt's Gulch. All in the name of fear of bureaucracy, a goddamn childish fear spat out onto the world in a childish temper tantrum.

"...there's dried mascara in my eyes. It hurts.

"...thanks. The other one, the one I wiped it all up before with, was all crusty...

"You can't control it all. And you shouldn't. People aren't creatures of order, but chaos. It's why no two art styles, languages, or traditions are the same. We adapt. 'Overspecialization is a poison, a slow death.' Sometimes you have to listen to an idea that comes from a weird place. You can't fully trust in automation, because you can't trust the people who built their will into the automatons, intentionally or not.

"Understanding culture here is a big reason to do this. Most people like to think that the West either has no culture, or culture is something religious; people think this way because for most if not all their lives they never get the chance to see their quirks from an outside perspective. They also make the mistake of thinking that they way they do things is the default way all people do things. The thing about people is there is no default state of mind outside of instinct, like procreating and eating and breathing. That's about as far as it goes.

"One big difference between the West and a certain Eastern culture is how business decisions are made. In the West, usually a boss makes a decision after asking around a little, and then puts it into effect. Then, as it goes, other people complain about it, and try to fix it as it goes. This might be a holdover from frontier times; when traveling the wild, where you can die at any moment, there isn't much time for deliberation. The plan changes as it goes, and here in the West, this has morphed into 'fix it later, when we see what's wrong.' Like I said before, automation has the ability to make mistakes faster than we can react; _we are not culturally ready for automation._ This is what I'm getting at here. We act before we think. Or, you do. Whatever. I don't even know who I am anymore. I guess I have no place.

"Yes, a black tea would be nice. Thank you.

"Back East, they wrap themselves in deliberation. A company will wait days, _weeks,_ maybe more, until just about _everyone_ puts in their opinion. However, once they make a decision, that's _that_. It's a long and stubborn process, one that tends to annoy foreign business partners. It has its drawbacks, but it is also a study in caution that we might want to heed, somewhat.

"I would also like to point out despite us on the West raving about the meta-national corporation that hires contractors to do most of the legwork-that way they don't have to pay benefits, or retirement, and if you're an artist, will make you do it For Exposure (look that up if you have the time)-the East is still holding onto the idea of a company being a family. One very famous former playing card maker turned video game company (one of the biggest in the world) famously wrinkled it's nose at laying off workers after a big time project was completed (though this company is far from perfect); meanwhile, in the West, we are having a scandal about a narrative game maker laying off hundreds of people without severance. And even if these 'agile workers'-frankly, a disgusting term-were helped into another job, _they still have no retirement plan, something only a real steady career can give them._ M-Moving from job to job can screw you, even if you are contracting-and _trust_ me, this extends _far_ beyond the reaches of electronic entertainment, all the way down to engine part manufacturers and even people who make cardboard boxes 6-because many contractors are booked so heavily by one company that they pretty much become a subsidiary of them; full time employees, but that have none if the benefits of being full time employees. And then, if the work dries up 9, the company is fricked. Hard. They pretty much have to fold right then and there.

"Imagine I didn't have money, my whole family didn't have money, and my father was becoming senile like my great uncle. Or getting real sick. If I keep bouncing from job to job _how in the frick am I supposed to help my own goddamn family, especially if I have to help both my parents and my own kids. I wouldn't even be able to stick him in a home. And what about if it happens to me when I'm young, and what about my future children._ But, don't think about it; just be a disposable, agile worker.

"I really don't think you have _any_ idea how ironic-and grimly hilarious-it is to have me working for _you._ " 10

"Yeah? Well, I'm starting to get annoyed as to how you insert yourself into _everything."_

"Sorry, I can't help it. This subject hits a little close to home. That's why it's weird to see you and your company bandying about with no input at all from people like me. It's irritating."

"How long are you gonna sit there and smack me around like a scarecrow."

"I don't know. I could go on until I die, I g-guess. But, I'm going at you like this because it's the only side you present, outside of the custom-tailored, nice-guy imagine you put on when trying to relate to people. Which is something presented in front of a camera. And is not to be trusted. We all have fronts. I can respect that. But you have to realise it's all I have to work with. That, and you're the one in front of me right now. Could have been anyone-except, at the end of the day, I have to sit here and swallow that it is _me, Blake Belladonna,_ working for someone like _you._

"And that's pretty weird, if you ask me.

"I guess I'm kinda stuck on it.

"And why shouldn't I be? It isn't so often that you get to see such irony."

Bartlett sat there, looking her in the eye, patiently.

Blake fidgeted with her hands.

Bartlett coughed.

Blake played a bit with her bow.

Bartlett opened his mouth slowly, and spoke calmly, "Are you done?"

"Um…"

"It seems like you had a lot backed up in there."

"Yeah…"

"Does the business really bother you that much?"

"Um… mmm-hmm…"

"Okay. Noted. Cripes _yourself_ there, kid. You talk about _me_ talking. I guess it feels good when you're saying what you think are the right things, huh?"

"Yeah…"

"I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I'm just doing what I think is right. Okay. Maybe we have _some_ listening problems, social disconnect problems in the company. But I do let people think what they will of our products, and let them play around with them. I've never blown anything up, either."

Blake laughed nervously, and scratched the back of her head.

"It's always the young ones that swagger in all dark and serious with their ideals that they defend to the death… hell, I've done it. _So_ many people _never_ believed in this company. It's still hard to even describe what we have accomplished. The house, car, and airship confuse the hell out of them. Like, 'Oh, you bought this _how?'_ but I learned to chill out. Unlike you."

More nervous laughs. She was finding her ribbon truly fascinating all of a sudden.

"You're so damn _angry_. You seriously need to learn how to chill. God… saying 'chill' makes it seem like I'm going, 'Hello, fellow younglings!' Too bad I left my backwards hat inside my bedroom. Cripes… I'd offer you a drink, but you're underage, of course, and I feel it would just make you _angrier."_

"Alcohol isn't a crutch…"

"No, it's a liquid. And I'm a sponsor for one of my friends and support him. It's led to me not drinking a ton either. But at least I'd be a happy drunk. You? Cripes…"

"Um…"

"Gods, you think you're the only angry young person to walk Remnant? Damn, girl! Chill. Okay?"

"Sorry…"

"We haven't even accomplished anything with all this!"

"Yeah…"

"Screw it, want another soft drink? Milk? Kool-Flavor, the compound favorite?"

She glared at Bartlett.

"Hey, _you_ walked into _my_ home-that I _let_ you into-where I raised _my_ kids, and insulted the ever-living hell out of me. Lemme get one."

Blake sighed.

"You seriously need to chill."

"Okay! I'm chill. I'm chill! Frosted!"

"Chill enough to yell it like you're on the top of a mountain, huh."

"I'm chill."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Good. Damn, that takes me back, though, when I was a young idiot. Everybody was young, okay? Don't forget it. If stuff bothers you that much, I'll take it into consideration. Goddamn, girl."

"Sorry."

"And I hate to break it to you, but your angry face isn't very becoming of you."

"Watch it."

"Took the words right outta my mouth." He sighed. "I wasn't even _born_ in Atlas, I freaking moved here. Don't cast me in with some… I don't know… _weirdos,_ okay?"

"Okay…"

"Sure, I've done tech talks… but the stuff is exciting. Okay… I'm not the master of the universe. I get it. I read too, I'll have you know, and more than some dumb kid." He leaned forward. "There was this movie a long time ago, where a character was this old guy-not as old as _me,_ but I'm certain to you all older gentlemen look the same-and he would like to ask people, 'You know, there's something you need to learn about this business, little fella? The only thing you _can_ assume, about a broken-down old man...' Care to hazard a guess?"

"Um…"

"'Is that he's a survivor.' Now, I'll flip that to fit myself more. Because I'm not a broken down old man. But I've been around. I _do_ talk to people, and have taken a lotta flak over time. I got here because I _do_ listen to people. I'm not just in here, this office, all day. Okay, maybe I stay in my circle a lot. Maybe. But you _don't_ know me. You've seen bits and pieces of me. I know hunters aren't supposed to assume, but you are right now. You want me to treat this situation in a way that's more serious? Fine. But keep in mind I'm not the only person who works for the company, and don't assume I'm inhuman. Okay?"

"Okay…"

"Grow up."

"But, you could be a bit more sympathetic to workers."

"I figured I already was. We get a lot of bad press because we are messing with tech that would sink older, pissier old men that want to hang onto not just the country but the world. But fine. I'll be nicer. But you he nicer too, okay?"

"Okay, dad…"

Bartlett frowned.

"Okay, I'll be nicer."

"All right. Let's… at least _try_ to be civil to one another."

"No choice now. I have to work for you."

"Oh, man…"

"What's done is done, I guess…"

"Yeah…"

It was still awkward.

"You should have seen the car I used to drive. Ever push a dead truck in bad weather, kid?"

"...actually yeah, but the guards were shooting at us."

Oh well.

1 ( _sic_ )

2 Salim Ismail, Michael S. Malone, and Yuri van Geest, _Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it)_ (New York: Diversion Books, 2014) Kindle Edition, chap. 3, under An MTP as a Competitive Edge 3

3 Jesus H Christ that's a long book title. What the hell, man. And I never made a footnote for an ebook before, because college was a long time ago 4

4 Today I learned that ebook is not spelled like e-book anymore. At least it isn't iBook.

5 ( _sic_ )

6 This is a weird little aside, maybe look at it later, but I can't help but think of it right now. A maxim (usually said with the gusto that accompanies a coach telling you to give one hundred and ten percent) among many manufacturers is that you are not selling product, but _time_. You sell the customer _time_ with your employees and equipment; the reality is that they are renting your services, not buying your individual products, and you charge them based on the _time_ it takes to make their order; this is what makes prices. This is why a Predator drone costs four million dollars and a DIY Drone costs three hundred dollars 7; with one, you are paying for workers to do it for you, that were professionally vetted and hired by a company, kind of like buying electronics that are ETL Certified. The same thing is done with medical professionals, who went to school, while you in the backyard, with a gash, and some fishing wire, isn't worth jack-squat.

7 these figures come from Exponential Organizations, a book published in 2014. Ibid., in other words. 8 I guess.

8 this goddamn virtual keyboard wants to capitalize after every period, even if it is an abbreviation, because it has no idea what is an abbreviation and what isn't, yet the beginning of _this_ sentence was not capitalized, and I left it as such, to prove a point. It also puts stupid little weird red squiggly lines all over words when I put the superscript on them for footnotes. I got tired of seeing the lines, so that's why they're spaced so weird.

9 or, even more fun, if the contract holder decides, "Hey, uh, you're gonna do this work for a cheaper price," and then you tell them that you can't afford to work for so low, so they yank out the contract, screwing you over, and this has actually happened to me before.

10 "...[A]nd before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you wanna sell it." Doctor Ian Malcolm

"I mean, you have plants in this building that are poisonous, you picked them because they looked good…" Doctor Ellie Sattler 11

11 _Jurassic Park._ Directed by Steven Spielberg. Universal City: Universal Pictures, 1993. Effed if I know if that's cited right. Or if I should even bother. I think that's how you do a bibliography. Or a works cited. Not footnotes. Or can you do the same with both? Eh. I drank my way out of community college. It's a fanfic. Sue me. I mean, I didn't even really cite half the stuff from the first half of this story. Or even point out which anecdotes were real or not, or hearsay, or embellished. We'd have to go over all the chapters again and again at this point. Tires in the mud… or, snow, more like. We _are_ in Atlas. Anyway,

 _12_ "Gee, ain't I a stinker?" Bugs Bunny and Kurt Vonnegut (speaking simultaneously), _Space Jam 2: The Passion of the Christ._ Directed by Uwe Boll. Tucson or Boston I think: Poor Yorick Entertainment, B.S 1973, Year of the Ideas Stolen with the Subtlety of a Jackhammer Wielded by a Orangutan Drinking Espresso.


	6. Frozen Jungle

They would walk slowly, no matter how close they were to being late; if they were close to being late, they were moving fast in their own mind, a sprint¹³ relative to a tortoise. It wouldn't matter if it was hot or cold, raining or snowing; it was always a slow trudge, like through mud. Dotted through the parking lot would be the glows of cigarette cherries fighting to stay alive through the wind, and always one man shuffling from smoker to smoker, trying to bum one off anyone who would give. Pretty much everyone smoked. There never really was much talking, unless it was coming from one of the four shifts walking out; four shifts because of the bizarre swing schedule management had pulled out its ass to keep the mines open twenty-four/seven, as well as pay less overtime. Management went and brought some random man in to play with the time schedules to figure out how to best do this; Red remembered the meeting in the darkened cafeteria, it reminded him of school, back when students would get excited when the teacher would bring the projector out, this ancient thing that looked like it was made of mostly plastic bull crap which had a weird and bent metal arm sticking out the top, which held up some sort of plastic triangle-thing. The triangle-thing held some mirrors over a glass surface which was laid out over a large light bulb. What you were supposed to do was lay a strange, somewhat see-thru piece of plastic-flexible like paper-that had writing on it, and the writing on it would be projected up through the mirrors and out onto the big canvas screen the teacher (or teacher's pet) had pulled noisily down from the ceiling, where it had hung curled up and retracted, and you could write on the piece of plastic paper now projected onto the canvas, large and bright so everyone could see it, and all this meant the lights were now off so the only light was what was being projected onto the canvas, and this meant you could put your head down on your desk and hope (1) you didn't get called on (2) you didn't snore too loud. That's what it was like in the cafeteria that day, with the random man talking about the swing shifts, with some stupid stand with the same kind of canvas set up in front of the big windows, which then made it really hard to see (because the sun was still out), but instead of the old school projector, a smaller, newer one connected to a laptop was used, one that started a Point Power presentation as to what the new schedule was going to be, and how it was necessary for the mines to move to a four shift operation, which Red didn't even think was possible to do unless you were starting a weekend shift. Many of the guys wouldn't like it if you started a weekend shift, they needed the overtime, even though the same men that wanted it were having a hard time keeping their heads up, their eyes alive; a lot of people weren't, and were mashing their faces into the table in a rather uncouth way, their open mouths and jowls becoming disjointed as their own bodyweight pressed them harder and harder into the fake plastic wood. It was school again; Red was a child again, always seen as a boy, and it was because he worked here and not anywhere else. Men at a place like this were not smart, and maybe that was true, but they were men, they were goddamn adults; he felt horribly indignant. When the men were spoken to, it was with mostly a slower tone you use to explain things to children, not at all the same fast-talking that Basil Bartlett would give whenever he was discussing his own business, something he expected you to be on the level and treated you like an adult, and this made it even harder for Red to keep his eyes open; they had to stay late for this, after working for twelve hours already, coming in early to cover someone else who hadn't been able to make it in or hadn't wanted to make it in. He kept telling himself it was only another twelve, going on thirteen or fourteen, depending how long the meeting went, and twelves weren't much of anything, it wasn't another double, but while one or two twelves a week wasn't the worst thing four was different, on top of the five he worked last week, with only one day off in between (that day broke it all up into a thirteen day week), and it had been like this all month, and the months before it for the past five years.

So the slow talk went on and on and he could barely follow it. He needed a smoke. He really needed a smoke. It'd been two hours since the last one, and this random guy giving the presentation was droning on and on. The shifts were now going to be four shifts, and you would work four days and be off four days. This struck Red as pretty damn weird, but he thought it might help with him seeing his wife, until he realized that the days were now always going to be twelve hours days, and working four-on four-off meant that you get one month of weekends, and one month where you don't get any. And if you worked nights that would mean that you were screwed from seeing anyone again, pretty much. Well, a lot of those guys would go out and try and do something before work, or stay up all day and night the day before they were to work; there was always that time in the summer, where going in and out of work, there would be an ambulance taking somebody away for passing out, or something, falling unconscious when a climbing a ladder, which happened once or twice a month, people with bloody heads getting wheeled out and asking if they were going to get drug tested, because maybe they had a hit or two earlier in the month, and that crap stays in your system, so even if you get a paper cut they send you out to get tested. They tried this on Red once, who was only a drinker: some idiot had tightened a bolt way too tight, and had even stripped the top of it, so when Red tried to out some real force on it with a hex key it popped out, and his fist slammed down hard on the metal teeth of a machine made to crunch up rocks; when he managed to to decouple his finger from the tooth, he looked at the wound, peering through the stream of blood that was rising out of the flesh, and before it was covered, he saw bits of white that had red bits of what almost looked like jelly, blood droplets that looked like the last of gelatin left in a bowl, jiggling, and he couldn't tell if the white was bone or that white flesh you only see when you cut deep enough or maybe a tendon, and then the blood welled up through all this like when you put a cloth in a bowl of water, the way it slowly seeps up until it covers everything, or maybe a shirt in swimming pool, and when his supervisor came around and saw him desperately trying to get something around his hand to keep the finger on the supervisor told him he was going to have to take a drug test, and then asked if Red wanted to go to the hospital. There was another time, when Red was walking into a gas station bathroom on his lunch break, he saw a bunch of his co-workers holding an injured hand over the sink, blood splashed everywhere, even on the goddamn mirror, because they were disinfecting a wound some kid got, and they didn't want to tell management because the kid smoked a bowl every once in a while, off hours, but it wouldn't matter if he was tested, and this kid was trying desperately to move out of his mother's house because all the work around the area was garbage but he had managed to get this job, and now maybe he had fricked it, but his co-workers were gonna help him out as he thrashed as more stuff was poured onto his hand which made Red think of his own scarred hands, and one of the men told Red to never talk about what he saw there, and all he could was just shrug say, "Don't use that frickin' tone with me and you'll be alright," casually used the urinal, and walked out. He never told anyone.

And now they wanted to do twelves every day, and of course, as time went on, people were called in on their days off. So, it was never fast across the parking lot, which was pretty big, and it was always slow no matter the weather, which was real damn cold today, with the light dropping fast, and Blake was furious it had taken her so long to get to the damn place, and now she was kneeling in the reception area, rubbing at her temples, shaking her head a bit. The parking lot was so damn massive, and she had no idea why, a lot of these workers had to come in by bus or something, or maybe those vans that usually carpool people. Something. The lot was all torn up now, bushes pushing through it, large cracks winding underneath rusting eighteen wheeler trailers abandoned off to one side, the wind running into your face like a tweaked-up linebacker, trying to push your eyeballs out of the back of your head. It should have been a beautiful view of the mountains that surrounded the area like the walls of a bowl, but such sights are only nice when you see them as a desktop wallpaper; when you see them in reality you realise how far removed you are from the rest of civilisation, how screwed you can get if one thing goes wrong. And now she was crouched in the vestibule before the reception area, wondering what the hell she was doing with her life, and if her feeling dizzy was due to the altitude.

The vestibule had been out of use for years, the whole place had been out of use for years, and there wasn't even any glass in the glass doors anymore. She shivered in the gusts blowing in, under her parka and snow pants, all blue and white camo swirls, hair tucked under a white hat, and under that, her ears double wrapped so they wouldn't freeze and then chip off her head.

Oh yeah, man, to work for the people. Any job you take is for the people, even if you are working for a big corporation. The people want crap, and there are certain people looking to fill that demand, not because they are smart, but because they are enterprising. And being enterprising can mean being brutal, and there is nothing smart about being brutal. Smashing a problem instead of figuring it out is the same talk prowess of a brute. The enterprisers promise to meet the squealing demands of people, getting out of the heavy lifting on the workers beneath them. People don't think anything of this. It's like meat in grocery store, and then videos come out showing how the animals are treated, and people are horrified, but nothing is shown about the people working there are getting your packages to you or making the damn thing you are reading this on right now, but the animals man, the damn animals, they were raised free range. Oh yeah, to work for the people, man.

The clock wasn't anywhere near the vestibule: it was an old hand-clock, and you had to punch in after you already waved your card at the first door. Red thought this was dumb, as well as pretty gross, even if there was a dispensary for hand sanitizer right next to it. The fact that the damn clock was right across from a set of bathrooms didn't help in the slightest. Disgusting. It wasn't enough that the employee entrance was off to the side, and it could only fit so many people at once, while the main entrance for the office and visitors was freaking _huge_. There was a giant modern art statue that reached up two floors, and Red always wondered how much it cost, and how in the hell could there be any starving artists. Maybe people only think art doesn't sell because the average person doesn't buy any; check any office space, though, and you'll find all the world's art, packed in from wall to wall, so the place looks nicer and like it has some spirit. You could tell how a company was doing by checking out two things: one, how nice their conference table was, and two, how much random art was stuck in there. The statue now was toppled like a pile of giant's bones, a post-modern Goliath that crawled into a space too small to escape from and starved and died. She had torn a bit of her parka when she walked by it, making her swear. She was still angry about it. She pulled her hand from the decaying hand-read punch-clock, looking at the now dried and cracked hand-sanitiser laying on the floor. The doors to the bathrooms were both smashed in. The water was gone from the toilets, but not the dried filth. The hand-clock had a slot in it to read a card, or it looked like it was supposed to read a card; this always miffed Red. Why not use that?

Blake rubbed at her eyes, and then rubbed at them again and again. It was then she realised that she left the oxygen tanks outside. It was a real pain getting the backpack onto her shoulders, and as she sat on the floor next to the time clock, she wondered why she had taken it off on the first place. She didn't need air right now. Of course not. The entrance to the mines wasn't _that_ high up.

"You sure?"

"Wolfe, they wouldn't do that, make it that high up, how in the hell would they make it to work?"

Wolfe hadn't liked the idea of her coming here all alone. It was pretty weird seeing him care about her well-being, until it occurred to her that she was the only real reason Wolfe either wasn't handed over to the cops on Bartlett's behest (revenge) or killed by robots. Or Bartlett (revenge). When she had walked over to his lodgings (their term for it, his term was fancy cage), she found him sitting on his bed, looking like he expected her to show up.

"Team WeB, back together at last!"

"... what?"

"'White Dog' and 'Belladonna.' Go Team WeB! That's the kinda fruity crap you people did back in School, right? Our color is white, or silver, are webs silver?"

"I dunno. Is it WeB because of the pallid complexions of the members, or because we keep getting caught up in predatory traps?"

"Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. So, how come you get special treatment, like talking to our great host?"

"How come you're not comatose?"

"Nobody really knows, and they don't really want me to go to sleep yet. I don't want to either, because I wanna know what the hell is going on."

"They didn't tell you anything?"

"No, and neither are you. Spill it. Come on."

"It's that guy Baron Bartlett's place, and he still remembers you stole his Bullhound."

"Fine. Don't tell me."

"He wants me to break into some old shut down mine, because his group gave them a bunch of equipment, and because of how complicated it was to get the units to work, certain engineers were always on staff. That, and they wanted those engineers to gather data on how to best deploy robot guards, like the ones that have escaped and are on the loose."

"Wait, what."

"It's all about killer robots now because why not, I guess."

"Are… are we seriously at that guy Bartlett's place? The guy who testified against me…? I don't like the look on your face…"

"Huh, you got a little desk and balcony. That seems stupid. If the killer robots attack they can get in through here. I'd keep the curtains shut. Man, this guy really likes big windows so he can see all his property, doesn't he? Wow. Oh. Yeah. It really is that guy. He remembers you…"

"So you said…"

"And it was killer robots that killed Verdeman and I used to go to School with one of them. What the hell is my life. Seriously. What is this. Screw god."

"What about killer robots now?"

"I'd keep seated. Look, the short of it is that job you set me up with? where I grabbed that information? for Verdeman? the guy who owned that place was killed by a bunch of empty robot husks that he drove insane. Remember… Vytal? The girl who was killed on broadcast, the robot. The guy took that girl's memories and shoved them in those husks, which couldn't handle it, and they've gone on killing spree. Elder Verdeman probably didn't really know what was going on too much, or more likely thought she could wait it out because those things are something made by Phoenix Head, Bartlett's company, and young Verdeman married Bridget Bartlett, giving him an in on some of Bartlett's crap. Young master Verdeman thought he could jack those husks units and make them defend his home inside the EZ. It didn't turn out so well. The guys who were guarding the building I broke into that night? Dead, two days later. The robots whacked Sophia Verdeman, too, and didn't kill the wife."

"Hey… look… we can't trust this Bartlett guy."

"Huh? Because of what _you_ did?"

"Because by killing the Verdemans his daughter now is in a spot to take over that company."

"...no, I don't think so. Sure, you could argue that he is putting me on, but he doesn't seem the type. He seems naive in some ways, and rather stupid in some others, but I don't think he is the type to do that. Besides, I'm sure that VEG is all tied up in red tape that you can't just hand over the business like that."

"Well, you just got done with talkin' to him, Belladonna, give it some time and then think about it.

"What?"

"...it's already been like half a day since I talked to him, Wolfe. I just got up. I'm still used to sleeping during the day."

"You got up and came right over here?"

No, she hadn't, she had walked the grounds, collecting her thoughts like she usually did. It really didn't matter where she was, she always ended up alone, thinking; from wandering the EZ to the streets to the mansion to the halls in the mines. She always found herself alone. Unless Sun followed her around like a damn puppy. She always felt weird about Sun, moreso than her teammates; her teammates had seen action, but were still so very young in a lot of ways; there was always a chance of dying, but the idea had been only an abstract to them and nothing concrete, not until the Fall. The way Yang flung herself at Adam was the rationale of someone who didn't understand the concept of consequence. The idea of losing a fight to her was still the basic idea of losing a match, which would suck, but you could brush yourself off and come back another time, now smarter and stronger. You get one chance in real fight, and it is that, a literal chance, a roll of the dice that doesn't give a good goddamn if good loses or not; time will always exist, not stopping, even if evil rules the world. It has no stake it what goes on, it is never affected. So the girl's arm was cut off and Blake was all stabbed up and then she watched that man try to cut her head off. He'd just… done it. She was starting to wonder if she was terrified of emotions. Emotion made Yang rush Adam, Adam's rage caused him to create one of the deadliest terrorist attacks the world had ever seen as well as attempt to cut apart the lover that spurned him, to rip away the mind that made Blake and leave the body inert, and emotion had made her run again.

But she wasn't running, or she didn't really know if she was or wasn't anymore; standing in the middle of the double doors that led out onto a dig machine staging floor, she didn't know if she was being brave or merely distracting herself like Bartlett said she was. Maybe all this was at the end of the day was panic, a frantic scramble for survival. The last known place of the engineers and their data rigs was deep in the mines, Bartlett told her; when things went bad, the engineers were buried deep in the mines. The rescue workers dug all the way in, and saved nothing but bodies. Being that the tunnels were not entirely up to code, the quick-fixes the rescuers put in place were definitely not going to be the safest, but it was her only bet in making it down there.

"We didn't allow any of the rescuers to touch our equipment trapped in those shafts, and they were fine with obliging that. Why the hell would they? We wanted to make sure that nobody would take this chance to steal what we were working on in there…"

"You honestly think someone would take that opportunity, at the time of a disaster…?"

"Yes Blake, I do."

Bartlett told her that she was going to have to power up the equipment and grab the data quickly; she was given a weird little power cell of Dust to wire into a generator. The charge wasn't going to last very long, but if she used the program uploaded onto her Scroll by Bartlett, the data would be searched out and found in a matter of minutes.

"If it's all blocked up, don't take the chance, Blake."

What kind of person did he think she was? She certainly wasn't an idiot, not the kind of moron who was worried about the idea of angry spirits or anything.

"Yeah… but ya gotta think about it, Belladonna. Now, I don't usually go for spooks 'n crap, but it's gotta be weird down there…"

"Wolfe, shut up…"

"Awright, awright, regardless of anything weird down there-with all them people dyin' so horribly down there-it's still dangerous as all hell, and they want ya to go alone?"

"Where the place is on the border makes it a rather politically sensitive situation, and it would be nuts to send people with me that would just hold me back."

"They ain't got no one here that can help you?"

"No, it doesn't seem so."

"But they think they can hold off a ton of Nickys."

"It's different to fight on your own turf than to fight with a bunch of oxygen you have to carry around in some place that is totally alien. Besides, I can slink around easier by myself."

He still hadn't gone for it, and it made sense. You were never supposed to be alone in either the building or the shafts, ever. If you wanted to stay for overtime and nobody else did, too bad. It made sense, and wasn't entirely an awful system, but it did get annoying sometimes. And there always needed to be some sort of boss figure around, some form of management, holding your damn hand, but it was more likely for someone on hand there to fire you or force you to a drug test if the situation arose. It never helped to have management on the floor; they always slowed things down. They never knew what was going on, or how to run anything, and would keep making you stop so you could explain what was going on. And if you somehow managed to actually hit quota, the idiots would slap you on the back and say, "Hey, we did it!" We. Seriously. We.

Management never really went down into the shaft, probably out of fear, so it was always a good way to get them to back off by revving your machine and getting it ready to head down. She looked around at the old machines, how badly they were handling being abandoned. The bay was massive, maybe the size of a whole warehouse, just without racks or anything. The lights were out, obviously, but there were some skylights, little rectangles of glass, because energy for lighting was expensive. What was mostly lit up for Blake were shafts of dust stretching from the floor to the roof, and it actually made it harder to see, because your eyes would have to keep adjusting. She was reminded of the EZ; it was another area that was dead silent when it shouldn't be. The machinery was massive, each looking like a block on treads, like busses fused with tanks, save for the giant mouths at the front, grinding machine bits that almost looked like buzz saws, all angled in; a bird's beak, except it opened in quarters, not halves, ready to feast. The machines sat on what looked to be rails or grooves or tracks in the floor, straight lines that ran about like circuitry, tracks that rotated on turntables here and there, all to get the machines into the belly of the mountain. She consulted her map, and went to Shaft B, all business now, trying to not pay attention to the weight of the oxygen canister on her back. The old feeling of getting to work wrapped around her like a blanket.

There's getting into a groove, when everything is going good, some people say you're in the zone, but that doesn't really meant much, never really helped explain the feeling, what it is; what it was easy to compare it to is lying down just the right way. It doesn't matter if you are tired or not when you do it. It could be a nice afternoon or a snowy night, you can be on a sofa, bed, park bench, or on the ground. Here's a good one: you maybe have one leg up near the top of the couch, probably resting on it or over the edge, your knee like a hook, looking almost lewd, but not really, and your other leg is just about hanging off the edge; you had pillows against one arm of the couch for your head, but you have your head slumped off the couch now, and you are looking at the ceiling and the ceiling looks upside down, somehow, which is weird, because it's above you and how can anything above you be upside down, and you feel _comfort supreme,_ and nothing could be better; maybe you got your hands dangling over your head, and despite how ridiculous it all is, and how you must look, you have reached _comfort supreme_ and nothing's gonna stop you, but maybe you want to reach for your mobile because laying there like that is at some point going to become boring, but you don't want to move because you _know_ you will lose _comfort supreme_ and you have _no_ idea if you will ever be able to get it back, maybe you could try, but that might be disastrous. It's the same, you face the same fears, when you are in the zone, if you are shooting the second free throw, or serving, or rushing for a tackle, or shredding a guitar, you got the strap in a nice spot on your shoulder and you don't even really see the fretboard as much as you _feel_ it, and there is something rushing past the internal eyes of your mind but when you put the instrument down you don't know what it was, like forgetting a dream, but you can't afford to forget it; you try to replicate everything exactly as it was, that way you might get the feeling back, so there is the lucky rabbit's foot you take with you when you are going out on patrol and the one guy who always leads the squad because he tripped a bomb but didn't get blown to pieces so that mother lover is frickin' _magic_ man, and you always want him there, the way you feel when bum-rushing someone to throw them down and you feel like you're riding a frickin' wave like you're body surfing and if you change a goddamn thing, you're so done, you've lost it, jumped the groove and are now running aground and are completely screwed. If you're not superstitious you aren't doing much with your life. It's the little bits of faith in total nonsense that gets you through it all because facing the reality of the chaos might be too damn much; when you have the goddamn _groove_ man, and you better stick to it if you're gonna make it through whatever it is, from lounging to foreplay to shooting the goal to shooting people. She took the hat off and played with her bow.

She was in some kind of groove and she didn't know what it was, it was different from anything she had been in before, where time gets weird and she becomes _absolutely supreme,_ who cares if she wasn't the best fighter on her Team and bowed out in the doubles rounds during the Festival and always seemed to sniff out trouble but could never seem to fight it and always had to be bailed out; she could get in and make it work, she'd made it work before, but this feeling right now down here wasn't that. She didn't know what the hell this was as she glided down that tunnel, her feet easily finding safe spots to put her weight, that way she wouldn't slip and roll down the whole expanse. She did have her oxygen on? Yeah. She didn't want to check. It was all perfect, but many different perfects and it felt not quite right but whatever. Like a bird of prey riding a thermal pocket of air, the wings pushing the creature's body up and helping it glide, but pockets of air like that seemed to come from anywhere at all and if she glided off them then she was going to have to find another or start beating her wings frantically and she only barely stopped the oxygen tank from cracking the back of her head when her feet went out from under her in almost a split; something that actually felt like tearing in her groin, she could see the muscles being stretched and pulled in her mind's eye and she put oxygen mask around her mouth and sat on the ground and fumbled for her electric torch. God, Belladonna, what the hell are you doing? Get out of your head. She was jumping from rail to rail, it felt like. That's what she thought. Jumping from rail to rail.

"No one is gonna hear ya scream down there."

"Okay, Wofle, how is this any different from going into the EZ?"

"Well… the military can come get you in the EZ…"

"Are you kidding me."

"Hey, jail beats gettin' eaten!"

"Grimm don't eat."

"Whatever, whatever! It's still dangerous as all hell, Belladonna!"

It was always dangerous, she and Red knew that, but the money was alright and there was a chance to move up and make management, I mean, come on! It wasn't glamorous, but what the hell was he gonna do, go into debt being a student? Everyone was trying to be some sort of medical tech/nurse or an engineer, and Red thought that was hilarious, because so many people were going for that they were going to glut the job market; besides, a nurse/etc. didn't mean you were doctor material or that hospitals were going throw cash at you; hell, people at Red's job made as much as those college kids. A lot of people in society thought that was insane, despite the work that they did on the mines, how _seriously_ complicated industrial machinery can be, and lots of people in society remarked that the price of Dust was so high because of it. Dust should be cheap, so maybe sentient life as well. And the engineers? Every once in a while you ran across one that actually had an idea what they were doing; a vast majority of engineers (what did that job title even mean, engineers seemed to show up in every sector of work) seemed to only slap together solutions out of prefab ideas they learned in school. Sometimes those ideas were duct-taped together. Seriously. He remembered how one guy actually duct-taped a wooden block onto a metal plunger, a piece of machinery that was supposed to clamp down on a box on a conveyor belt, then spin it, directing it to whatever conveyor line it was supposed to go to. The calculations made didn't fit the size of the uniform boxes. College degrees do wonders for getting people work.

There was the other college guy who disabled the safety shut-off on a robotic arm so he could stand close to it and watch it work, then walked away for lunch, came back, forgot the safety was off, didn't tell anyone he was in by the robot, and proceeded to futz around with a control panel or something while writing on a clipboard. The operator came back, shut the gate, and turned the robot on, which began to flail about as it did during its work. The college guy inside the cage didn't notice because of how _loud_ everything always was; he kept right on going, bent over, the arm moving as fast as a car _right_ over his head. The operator, as he was walking around, saw the guy in there, and ran in and grabbed him, dragging the guy out before he could stand up and cut his own head off. And after? the engineer swung at the operator, squaring up, angry about being touched and not listening as to _why_ he had been grabbed, getting ready for a fist-fight, saying he wasn't going to take that, and the supervisor came over, talking about firing the operator, until it was pointed out that the robot was freaking _on_. The college guy then laughed; he wasn't kicked out, and continued to work there.

She shook her head, laughing a bit, but came out of it as her footing was getting harder and harder to find. There was abandoned machinery everywhere, she told the nurse, maybe she should get a tetanus shot. The nurse asked Blake if she cut herself while she was down in the mines, and she said she didn't think so, though several times she did trip and fall to her knees. She started to wonder if she was going to wear away the snow pants, and if she did, how much cold air would get in. She didn't want to use the machines as a way to hold herself up; the rust made some of the edges jagged.

Something told her to be careful as she she made her way down, and the nurse said well, yes, that was sensibility talking, and Blake said no, she really felt like something told her to be careful. The nurse asked her if she had gone on the mission alone or not, and Blake said she had, she didn't think anyone was down there. The nurse said it didn't look like Blake was going to lose her fingers after all, the blood flow was returning nicely.

Blake wanted to keep her fingers away from the machines as she went on, and finally, she decided that she was going to slide herself down. It was the best option in the jangling of the flashlight. It was a shame there were no stairs; the sides only had some sort of small box elevator that was supposed to go up and down, because _no one_ was to be walking around where the machines would be going up and down. The box elevator was reinforced as well as soundproofed; it moved so damn slow, you had to get to work _so_ damn early if you wanted to make it to your station on time. There was also a meeting every shift, so if you were at work, you had to wait until the incoming shift got out of the meeting and made its way down the slow-as-hell elevator. You were _not_ to leave your shift until your relief came in. That was insane, but you very well couldn't just walk down the shaft like she was doing. Cripes, how many different layers were they digging on? She looked at the map on her Scroll, sitting on the floor, trying to parse out where she was, when the noise of the rocks rolling down the shaft got her scrambling to the broken elevator tracks on the side. There were awful metallic bangs, and then the rumbling was even louder, and she had the Shroud out and was using the grapple to stick to the side and pull herself along as she speed-walked as fast as she could along the incline, the tank slamming into her spine, the smell of her own breath now clogging the mask she wore over her mouth as she panted. It sounded like more than one of the machines was coming down. The jagged metal teeth if the box elevator track was now only so far away, but she felt some kind of dust or dirt falling onto her shoulders. She made the mistake of looking to her left, up the shaft, the torch revealing that it was three dump-truck-looking things speeding at her. She yanked and yanked, her biceps bulging like they were going to split her skin, and she felt them screaming at her that they were coming apart, and she screamed out loud to herself to freaking pull, pull you idiot, and her voice bounced up and down the shaft like a mocking cartoon character, and this made her scream louder, and she almost stumbled over the teeth of the box elevator track. She clambered onto them, pulling out the Shroud and pulling herself up onto the platform and running into the open maw of a doorway. She didn't stop running down the pitch black hallway until she came to a T-junction maybe ten feet from the door. Outside, it sounded like a horde of fairy tale monsters was screeching for blood down the shaft, getting louder and louder until she curled up on herself, covering her ears and quaking, feeling vomit spastically reach up to escape her but never quite making it, and she kept shaking like that even after the bomb blast sound of all the machines slamming into _something_ , causing all the walls to shake with her as she screamed for her parents and kept saying how she was sorry over and over again as the walls grew enraged with her and started to twitch and then vibrate with rage and the ceiling threw pieces of itself down onto her and she was sorry so _goddamn sorry that she did what she did and she didn't want to die please don't let her die_. And when it was quiet, and she heard herself, shame draped itself over her, and she sat down in the light of the torch, cradling it like a stuffed toy, until she was able to stand. Everyone has their own unique screams, like their laugh. You haven't heard it until you hit that moment when you _know,_ not merely think, that you are going to die. It is _not_ the sounds you make when you see scared by a movie or a game. Once you hear it, you don't forget it.

You taste blood in your throat because that's how raw you made it.

When she was about to stand, she worked her fingers into her cat ears, trying to fish the dirt and pebbles out of them. She stopped when she felt that all she was doing was pushing it deeper in. She didn't know if her muffled hearing was because of that or all the noise from before.

[HEY CHECK THIS] Checking the map again, she saw that she was four [HEY CHECK THIS] sections higher than she was supposed to be. Blake groaned, sounding like a child too tired to cry anymore. With a finger dangling over the map she began to navigate towards the stairwell. The shaft was now blocked, stopped up by the fallen machines.

"The stairs might be collapsed, Blake."

"You want me to rappel down the shaft?"

"It's on an incline. If you're careful, you can walk it. Just… be careful."

No lights at all, of course not, but it was too weird seeing all the lighting fixtures out. It made everything seem extra wrong. There was supposed to be light here, and now there wasn't. Then again, people were never supposed to burrow down into the soil to begin with. Society depended on changing the world to meet its designs. Blake had never been this deep into a mine, and something started to well up in her chest and squeeze her heart; this is what these people did, for a job. She always knew but now she actually knew. That cave-in that left all these people to die down here… was there even a way out? What did those people trapped in here think as the oxygen started to run out? Was it worse to be in one of the offices like in this hall, not killed right away? You would have to walk all the way to the stairs before you saw that you were trapped. The stairs up were blocked, and there wasn't a pile of skeletons around it. She didn't even know if the bones would still be preserved after all this time. It wasn't like all the chairs and desks were flipped either; as she passed by offices, some shelves were knocked over, some papers on the floor, and that was it; probably a few things falling over during the first shakes. Sure, everything was decayed and dirty, but the people working here did not panic; they waited for help, waited for the shaft to get cleared, while the people outside ran around in panic trying to keep the generators alive, because a terrible snowstorm was making the temperature drop to less than nothing, and the burden of keeping the heat going and pumping air was too damn hard, incredibly rough, and the people tending the generators were getting frostbit, a few people lost fingers and toes, all because nothing was planned out correctly, because it never is, because anyone working on a planning or building board is seen as a nuisance and workarounds in government, people who owe favors for their offices, are used. The people here had sat at their desks, maybe joked, first watched the lights go out, and then got so cold, and all fell asleep together in the cafeteria, and she was stepping on a piece of someone, she didn't know what part it was. Her feet took her here on their own, and she didn't know why, but there everyone was, huddled together in filth; all of them went and passed out and voided all over each other, congealing into a hardened brown mess, all united in death, becoming a huge heap of hardened nothing under a massive pile of blankets and coats, hiding from all of it like children. She looked at her hand, seeing it was holding up a blanket. She dropped it, furiously wiping the hand on her pants leg, feeling unclean. She wanted to take the glove off, she was telling herself to take the glove off, no she wasn't going to do that. Why and what… she left the glove on. There was nobody down here but her. She walked back to the stairs, and again remarked that there were no skeletons there.

Would she listen to their story? She told the nurse that she wouldn't want to, she would have to be out of her mind, and the nurse smiled and nodded, and Blake saw that he was fake smiling, and kept trying to push her point, and he said okay, and then walked over to phone, telling Bartlett that Blake was acting like she had a fever or something, but he didn't know, and Bartlett said he would be right down. Wolfe caught up with Bartlett, being that he had been wandering around waiting for Blake, and told Bartlett that despite the crap between them, he was going with him down to the infirmary. Bartlett punched Wolfe in the face, helped him up off the ground, and said that the infirmary was this way.

She didn't want to know what those people went through, she already knew so much else that was going on in the world, she couldn't handle this as well. That's always how it was. He knew it; all he could do was nod. He still clocked in and did what he had to do even though he knew that's how it was. Still, he made sure that everyone that worked with him was going to get home. Red still remembered when they all went home early that one day because of the death in a neighboring mine; despite the fact that it was from a different company, out of respect, they shut down for the day. Man, hearing about what happened was horrible. Somebody was working in between machinery, and turned the safety key but didn't take it out. So, another guy walks over and flips the machine back on, crushing the guy; he wasn't killed outright. The guy only died as he was being airlifted out; they got him into the aircraft and found out he just died. It took thirty minutes for the aircraft to even get there. Red always thought about that, about feeling your snapped bones poke your crushed organs as you swayed back and forth in the air, how that was the last thing you would feel.

Not long after, as he was about to head into work one day, a woman tapped at his shoulder, asking if this was where the man who died worked. She was his wife, his new wife, and had issues remembering the name of the mine, being that her husband always just called it the mine and was this the one, the mine. Red walked her across the parking lot towards where the commuter bus entered, calling the woman a car and paying for it. As they walked, she said nothing; when he went to smoke, he offered her one. Wordlessly, she took it and smiled. As he lit it for her, he knew right then that she did not smoke. She still went at it, though, coughing and sneezing all over her hands. Red gave her a rough cloth he was going to use for the grease yet to stain his hands that day. She only smoked it halfway before dropping it onto the ground. When Red lit up another, he asked her again, not really knowing what to say like before, and she accepted it like before. It was a long walk across the parking lot, and a long wait for the car. Nothing was said except for the proffering of cigarettes, and after she got into the car, Red never saw her again.

A fatal accident would surely close most mines, and that mine shut down after the lawsuits and fines. Red always told the men working under him if they wanted to kill themselves, to do it on their own time, and off company property. You doing something unsafe could screw over the other guy in a totally different area of the mines. So, you weren't just screwing yourself, but other people actually doing as they were supposed to. He wouldn't take anything unsafe, period. Sometimes you have to, because if you don't your team was going to fail for the day, and the crap you would hear for being too much of a pansy wasn't worth it. They start trying to find ways to fire you. So many places will let you come in late a bunch, or not drug test you, until you feel your safe, and then go after you if you don't play for the team, as they would say. It's been done to even the safety guys, who might have been causing too much of an issue for either management or the workers. They aren't very well liked on a floor, and to be fair, some of them are a real pain in the ass, but Blake would always hear them out, because everyone has a story to tell. Red and Markus didn't much care for them, because the safety guy could be used as one more way to drum you out; sometimes PPE just got in the way, easily scratched up and cheaply made goggles, you weren't going to stick your hands near moving parts while not being able to see a damn thing, and they would wait to see you without it, and off you went, canned. But Blake was worried, because every one of these safety guys she would talk into were fired because of how dangerous it was to work in the shafts, and they kept voicing their opinions on it. It started to become a thing in certain cultural circles to dump on the idea of a safe workplace, that real men (they rarely acknowledged women do these jobs too) would just hack it, that there was a pride involved in doing it that way, whatever it took, harder not smarter. One safety guy told her though that he had seen too many hands with missing fingers, though. It was getting ridiculous to keep a swagger about yourself when pieces of your own body were missing. It was kind of funny that now she herself was taking such a ludicrous risk, and all alone, for that matter.

"How were _you_ able to get out safe?"

"... I don't know. I really don't. I just remember climbing out and finding all the smashed pieces, and then hearing the engines."

She didn't really have an idea on how to get down safely, either, and didn't know if the way up was still all right. It was stupid for her not to see if her way out was going to still work, but she threw safety out because she wanted to get this over with and _leave_. Her plan was to use the stairwell until she couldn't, then move back over to the shaft and continue down as far as she had to. In the pitch black. Like an unsafe idiot.

When she looked at the shaft before, all she could see was the machines all mashed together, but was unable to tell how far down that was. Or if the machines would stay put there. If they didn't, she was dead.

But she needed to get to those hard drives. She needed to find out where Penny… was it Penny? She needed to find out where those imposters were hiding and end this. For her. So her corpse wouldn't be puppeted around like this anymore.

It certainly didn't feel like she was alone, after seeing all those bodies curled up on one another. Nothing could survive down here, she was pretty sure, but who knew really; with so many negative vibes around there might even be a monster or two. She couldn't bring herself to ask how anything could live down here. Maybe it was all the freeze dried crap, garbage food, packaged colon cancer, or maybe you could hunt outside, whatever, it wouldn't make sense. No matter what, she would count herself as alone; anything that was here was dead, no matter what it did. Anything here was stuck here, unable to really live.

There was so much anger then.

But she needed to get down the shaft, that's what she said. Vague blurs in her vision. She said to herself, then, not then, that she should probably get down the shaft, as well. One of the few times she talked to herself. She always made sure not to say what she was thinking. She spent too much time alone, and admitted right then that she was always scared she was going to go crazy from being alone all the time. Talking to yourself is a sign. Hand held. Didn't help much. She decided to keep on this. Always a load on her shoulders, but that's how it was supposed to be because no one else would bother doing it, so it was up to her. That's part of why (after going down the stairs until they were blocked) she made her way to the shaft, in the cold and dark, fastened a rope to a rail, and started to walk down slowly, her head whipping back and forth from where she was stepping to the clogged machinery just up the way, listening for any sound, maybe rocks skittering down the incline, the machinery coming loose. Her Scroll was out while she was calculating how much further she needed to go, so it was a shock when she slipped and started rolling down the incline. What probably saved her was the rope, because she became entangled in it, almost choking herself. She only rolled so far, but after pulling the rope off her neck, she felt bruises there. Coughing, she walked over to another landing, and started to head down the hall to the generator.

The rubble from the initial cave-in that closed the mine was right there, down the shaft only a little ways from her. Well, that wasn't entirely true; Red explained to Markus that the entire shaft had somehow been blocked, so it was going to be a while; what was there now was the last bit the rescuers gave up on, when it was obvious no one was getting out alive. How could Red know that the whole shaft was blocked? Well, the soundproofing that made sure the noise from the machinery didn't disrupt work on the different levels of the mine, making the damage hard to determine from where they were, but Red was able to make a call to one of the guys on the level above via a short range radio. The levels each called the one above, because the landline comms weren't working, so only the people trapped closest to the surface with wireless connections were able to talk to the outside world and pass on the news. So, not wanting to wait, because he didn't think it was a good idea, Red got the idea to chance the collapsed stairs. He knew they were going to die first, running out of air because of how deep they were. Everyone was getting weaker on this level. The stairs are where Red died, when the small gap they were squeezing through collapsed, snipping him right in half. Mostly. He still hung there, just with a mess coming out of either end, like squeezing a tube of toothpaste with the cap off and a small hole cut in the bottom. Markus passed out near the entrance to the shaft, and from he understood, parts of his brain died due to lack of oxygen. Never was the same.

Lack of air was messing with her as well. She spotted another congealed mess of bodies, and went for her Scroll, and realised that she didn't have it. So she had no map. She knew this was the floor for the generator though, and as long as she went down one floor right after she got it working, and grabbed the files… with what? She needed the Scroll. All she could do right now was find her way back out. As long as she didn't run out of air. Or get too cold. But she needed that Scroll. She needed to go from room to room; the shaft was to be searched last, because there was something horrible about going out there. It was getting on her nerves too much, making her jumpy, messing with her head. But she was going to turn on the generator first. Get some lights on. That would help. Find the generator. She didn't lose the Dust battery, right? No, she still had it.

Yeah, she was able to find the generator easy, all right, it just took a lot of poking around in random rooms and kicking in a door, all of which dropped the amount of oxygen she had by a huge amount. That was okay though. It was right there. Despite how small the battery was, once she had it out of her pocket and connected to the electronics in the cabinet, she felt lighter; how much did that thing weigh? Over ten pounds? What the hell? Technology, man.

The Scroll had all the instructions on it, but there was a binder with faded paper sitting nearby on a bench, with some of the instructions still visible. She bled on them a bit, making small swirls of smears as she flicked back and forth. How low was her aura? Was she already as low as an average person? When normal people get stuck, it flowed right out. There was the guy who got degloved on one of the grinders. The kid was trying to clean, or sharpen, or do something to one of the grinder's wheels, but there was still a ton of residual tension, and it pulled the kid's hand, just ripping it up.

He'd never seen so much blood, and yet, it wasn't really all that much; the floors had stains in patches. Most of it was still caked on the screaming man. Screaming Red knew well. After the man was taken out of the building, the shift was cancelled for a day. The next shift still had to come in. They had a safety meeting in the morning, where a former electrician-turned-manager came in, and showed off the cast encasing the lump of flesh on the end of his arm, and explained that he didn't like taking the cast off his own degloved hand, not only because of how it looked: no fingers, and his right big toe grafted on as a thumb, but because there was no real muscle or nerve endings in the "hand" or forearm anymore, so they had to make up something special for him. It's why prosthesis wouldn't work, even a basic mechanical one; the nerves had actually been ripped out of the flesh like strands of hair pulled off your head, thin and wet, tearing at the root. He himself once forgot to enact the safety on a shaft he was repairing, and the machine kicked on, pulling the bottom half off his hand off; and that meant, by bottom half, the part of your hand that has your fingerprints, palm lines, the bottom half the long way, all the way the forearm to the elbow, including veins, and all five fingers. And the nerves. The nerves came out too. It's all just wiring, piping, that can be stripped out of a house like someone rooting for copper. With the top half of his arm still there, and some of the bones still embedded in it, they were able to graft skin over the exposed meat, and later, salvaging what nerves were left (and playing a guessing game as to what they were supposed to be attached to) grafted one of his big toes to where his thumb was supposed to be. It worked, but there wasn't much feeling in the club that capped his arm.

This manager man gave this sort of safety talk to a different company once, before he wore the cast on his arm. The meeting was a long one, so the manager leaned against a window sill. Much time passed, and the manager's attention wandered, focusing on the smell of barbecue. With nothing else to think about, he began to wonder what was being cooked. There must be some sort of company cookout after the meeting; lucky guys. Though it was winter; yes, that was strange. Very cold out. Other people noticed the smell, and were perplexed, which in turn, perplexed the manager. More and more people started looking towards him, and he became uncomfortable. Someone pointed at him, asking if that was smoke behind him. The manager turned around, and saw he had been leaning on a radiator for the past hour, with his hands behind his back, and now there were long, black grill marks on his club arm. He hadn't felt a thing; there was no wiring left in his arm to feel anything. A most curious idea to register.

The men in the safety meeting laughed, both the men who were there when the manager burned himself, and the people with Red listening to him tell the story, where the manager showed off the cast he wore, talked about how he had to take it off and clean the club arm because of the sweat smell that would build up, and how he could never get a prosthesis because of the lack of nerves; you can't just start sticking wires in a person, no matter how far along we are with our technology, how much we like to think we have advanced; it doesn't matter how far some weirdos say we are from a singularity and becoming gods, we are still just confused creatures trying to do our best.

Red didn't laugh much at the manager's story; the degloved kid's screams from yesterday stuck with Red. The poor boy screaming as he clutched the mangled mess of his arm, some fingers bent backwards and lying flattened on the top of his hand and forearm, reminded Red of his own terror screams; Red's screams were little bursts, almost like an alarm clock; he never did like getting up in the morning. He remembered when he discovered his terror screams; it left his throat torn up and raw, his head dizzy because of the lack of air. He was kneeling between two big, rectangular pieces of machinery, the size and weight of cars, with massive rotating shafts for pressing on product. The huge parts were on a track, and were meant to close together with three other ones to make a whole, massive machine, built huge and tough so it could handle thousands upon thousands of pounds of product without stopping, except on occasion, like right then, when Red had to maintain some parts of the saft by opening it up and getting inside. He pulled the safety, cutting the power to the machine sections,15 but did not count on what his assistant for the day was doing. A lot of people on long shifts like this, especially the older ones, tweak themselves out, so they can stay awake and compete with the younger guys, but some, mainly younger ones, would take whatever it took to make the day relaxed and flow by real nice, even if it left them in a stupor, like this one dazed assistant was, who turned the safety off and started to close up the machine. Red snapped the safety back on, yelled at him, and knelt back down in between the sections. The assistant didn't really hear it, wasn't paying any attention, so shut off the safety and started to close the machine again. Now, the sections were so close that Red couldn't move, couldn't reach his internal safety trigger. The next section was touching his nose. Well. He knew he was gonna die. So, he started screaming, but the sound was so alien he didn't know what it was. And then he got quiet. His limbic system knew there wasn't any point. If feels like a painkiller. A good, strong one. You feel real nice. You kind of miss it, sometimes.

Someone else heard the screaming and stopped the assistant from closing the machine before Red was injured physically. It was only after the sections were opened and he staggered out that he registered what those noises were, realized how he screamed. He never forgot it. It stuck with him until he died. It's amazing what you can get used to, especially about yourself. The next time they happened, he was able to cut them off, clear his head, and start yelling at the idiot who was about to kill him. He was able to take control of a situation where his leg was about to get pulled off. Mental fortitude is far more valuable than gold, or even oil.

It can always come back on you, though. Staying in the light helps keep it at bay. When the lights are on, you have things to look at, but when they go out, you are alone inside yourself. Life seems to go like this: (1) as a kid, you're afraid of the dark, (2) you learn being afraid of the dark is lame, so you work hard not to be, (3) then you hit your teens, and you learn to love hanging out at night, maybe even sneaking out of your parents house, maybe partying, (4) but you get older and you figure out what true darkness is; wandering around your neighborhood after the sun has set isn't the same as being in total isolation. If you get in trouble in your neighborhood you can still get help. On the side of the road, alone in a building, in a bad city, out in the forest, buried alive, or behind enemy lines, in the EZ, you don't get help. In your own mind, in the dark, you don't get help right away. You become afraid of the dark again. Worse than you used to be. You have panic attacks in the dark. You wake up the person next to you, and you can't answer their questions. You feel like dogs- as they try to help you, and they know they are failing, but you are trying to smile so they can feel like they helped you. With the lights on in the halls, she felt more relief, even if she felt very dizzy. She needed to find that Scroll. Maybe not. No, she did, how else was she going to copy the information? She needed to find that Scroll. Out in the hallway now, swaying in the cold, with all the lights flickering and some vents whirring, which was bad, rubbing her eyes.

"Make sure the air doesn't come on."

"Would it drain the battery that fast?"

Bartlett gave her a look. Well, how the hell was she supposed to know? Her School didn't teach that stuff as in depth as other places. Sure she studied, but all four of them knew that they weren't going to get the best education. "Ah, who cares? We'll learn what we need to know and be just fine."

"Yang, I feel you're just saying that so you don't have to study anymore."

"I agree with Blake. I haven't seen you open a book in weeks."

"Oh, whoa, you actually agree with Blake on something, Weiss?"

If Yang kept goofing off and failed this upcoming test, she was going to be out on academic probation and screw over the rest of the Team. Weiss got right up in her face about it. Blake blinked at the screens, which had fuzzy pictures and the strangest audio. No scar on Weiss's face at all. She was young; very much a child, maybe not even a preteen. There was that Winter girl, tall and gangly, adolescent, awkward in a dress that she looked like she didn't want to wear. A lot of the Atlas nobility had put together friendly messages to inspire hope in the workers, because there were so many protests happening; they wanted to show that they cared, that nobles were actually on their side, that the protesters were just radicals, violent radicals. Little Weiss on a screen. Gods. The camera had zoomed in on both of the girls individually, but now drew back, and Weiss began to pirouette and sing; the speakers were torn, each vibration violating and distorting the young girl's voice more and more, underwater off-pitch screams, and now some machinery in the walls was going, pistons making hammer sounds that shook Blake's stomach, water balloon full of bile on a river slowly getting more violent, and she knew she had to find that dn Scroll, and Weiss's voice just kept going on and on, the video repeating. The video was old, but the plant kept playing it on occasion, usually around the Winter holidays, maybe Weiss was singing a holiday song, but some of the guys that had been there a while joked about giving the girl a spanking while telling her to shut up. One time Markus, because he was so good with computers, switched the video to a swimsuit competition, but he only scored so many points with the guys because he banged dudes like a bitch, and that's how it was always described, and he felt like a goddamn cliche because that's all you ever heard or saw in media; a lot of people could barely worked computers, but the nerd was now what was popular and was always depicted, and I guess it beat the old cliche of the fashionista. Still, shutting off that Weiss video did help, even if they didn't want to admit it. Blake wanted it shut off now, but was torn between figuring out what wires went to where in the generator room, or getting out of the mines before she ran out of oxygen.

When she found the Scroll in the pile of stuff, she tried not to look at the crude dolls, of who they were, and she now wanted to know very badly how long she'd been down here. The way the dolls were hung from the ceiling, red, black, white, yellow, orange, pink, how the colors were painted… she didn't want to know. Weiss was still singing, and the projected images were screwing with the shadows. She didn't want to talk or think about the shadows. The black and shapeless shadows that always float around in the corner of your eye and you don't know if that is just something floating on your corneas or whether or not you're hallucinating, and if you are hallucinating you have to figure out why. You could just be crazy, plain old insane, but you could also be only tired, thirsty, or hungry; your mind has a lot of different reasons to screw with you, and it's not until you start to see them that you can understand what it will do when you drop your guard. If you stay awake for forty hours, for instance, sometimes colors seem to continue on for too long in the corners of your vision. Like, if there is a pipe above you, horizontal, running down the length of the area you're walking until it suddenly banks upward like a crazed pilot, shooting through the ceiling into the outside, and the damn thing is red but you could swear that the color kept on going on past the ninety degree bend in the pipe, but you look back at it and it's normal, did you actually imagine that or are your eyes so damn dry and your vision so warped from your head bobbing so much from all the effort you are putting into keeping it upright as you walk, (otherwise you will start drifting like a car in the snow or rain until you carom off the walls, maybe falling down and just letting sleep climb up your spine and sit on your face as you are at work, except that would be bad, and that's about as complete as your thoughts can get, "That would be bad," no reason outside that) so you end up starting at the pipe, trying to figure out why you saw it that way, maybe it was a weird effect like lens flare in a movie, except you're staring at the pipe like someone watching the Burning Man, and with the same level of deep contemplation but none of the lunatic fun, just the regular old-fashioned kind of lunacy and it would be great to quit this place so you could just sleep, because there is no point in earning money that you never get the time to spend; and it's not like it was much money to begin with; at first you think it's great until you realize that your health insurance sucks ass and you end up spending most of your money because a part of you decided it was just going to stop working, and _that's_ when you realize how much your own body can work not _particularly_ against you, but it can have it's own agenda, of shutting you down because it decided "Nah, screw this"; consciousness tends to inflate it's own relevance in the grand scheme of living, despite important reactions like sex and love and fear being nearly entirely automatic, and even addictions, the small arguments you get into with yourself when you're holding up that lit cigarette so you tell yourself it's the last, just like the hundred before it, but you allowed yourself just this one last one because it was that kind of day, and you were driving home and the station was on the way home, or it was now, because at some point, you decided to take the long way home, which took you to the station, and you're walking inside asking what the hell am I doing? You stand in the station, and the clerk is watching you, and now you know you look crazy and you're wondering if he is sizing you up, getting ready to duck behind the counter grab a gun and blow your head off because you're dressed like a bum, in a dirty jacket and pants that are damaged around the knees, and because most of the world only remembers the homeless around the winter holidays, because of the commercials to donate, that's why they think you're homeless. Even though most homeless you've seen are wondering around outside during the summer in tee shirts, because who the frick is stupid enough to wander around outside in the goddamn winter. But you're standing in the store and you go to get coffee and maybe a sandwich because you get hungry when you need to smoke,16 but since you're in the station why not buy a pack. And you feel ashamed. So frickin' ashamed, as you walk up and ask for a pack, and it feels like there is another voice in your head telling you this is fine but, wait, is this voice yours, but it _has_ to be your own brain, what else could it be, but how could it be when _you_ want to quit? Is that voice telling you it's okay actually a part of you or is it not? But if you smoke it will give you some energy. And you still need to drive home and you have fallen asleep at the wheel a few times before. Okay. So buy them _why am I thinking like that, is that actually me, or is it something else?_ But you are already pulling out your ID, and grabbing the money, and the guy behind you on line pushes you out of the way slightly and says, "I got this." You don't know what he's got, where this dude came from, but then you realize that he is another customer, one that was watching you in you crummy clothes and shame at the counter _and he thinks you are homeless and don't have the money and he is trying to do his good deed for the day._ You're in shock. How bad do you look? All you did was get out of work… what the hell do you look like? Do you even know? When was the last time you cared, looked in the mirror? Are you scared of what you would see? And then you realize that because this is such a crazy thing happening to you right now that you should totally allow yourself a pack of cigarettes that you _absolutely_ _will_ smoke in one day but _it's the last one,_ just like the pack before it. The guy pays for your stuff and wishes you a happy holidays and you almost start screaming with laughter after you get into your _goddamn car_ and leave the station, and he watches you the whole while, confused as all hell as to how you have a car and slowly getting angry and you don't know what's worse you finding this funny or him failing at doing a good thing.

Now take all that, every last part of it, and make it entirely about booze.

Drinking alone can be okay, and a lotta fun _but you should never ever do it._ But of course you do, because the day you have off is in the middle of the week because of all the swing shift crap, so that's when Red would drink. He used to get a kick out of coming home after a night shift, eight in the morning, in sweatpants and socks, sitting on his porch, drinking whiskey and waving at all the kids on the school busses, and all the drivers, bus or commuters going to work, would look at him all horrified. The kids always laughed and waved back. They didn't care. Neither did he. That's why he did it.

And then you would wake up on your day off and it would be ten at night or maybe nine and you would head over to your buddy's where he was getting people together and once you joined the festivities he would shove a beer in your hand, and you would look at it, wondering if this counted as daytime drinking, breakfast beers, saying maybe you shouldn't to him, and then it's several drinks in and who gives a damn anymore. You aren't that bad, not as bad as other people get; you aren't dead, for one thing. You don't think this is going to kill you. It's usually around age sixteen when you start knowing dead people; it usually starts with the kid that got their own special section in the year book. Later on, it's that one guy you cut contact with because he started shooting up; you usually tell yourself it's because they might steal crap, and they have stolen crap, but you gotta wonder if they just scare you and you don't want to be associated with them, even if they don't steal, because maybe you see something in them that you see in yourself; you each picked a different poison. And then their girl runs off with someone else's baby wrapped in their guts, and you damn well know that your old buddy gave himself an allowance, just to do a little extra that day, like you did the day after his funeral, where you have a whiskey in your hand, and your face is on the table, and you are working to pick your head up because you don't want to drown yourself trying to drink by pouring the glass on your face, but what you're doing is different from your old buddy because one, it's not illegal, and dear sweet gods (if there are any that) _has_ to mean something, it _has_ to, and two, you aren't like that guy, your buddy. Right. That settles it. Sure, Red had issues sleeping, but he never took pills, he liked to be somewhat aware of what was going on, but, still, he didn't want to lie there awake in bed hugging his knees thinking about getting crushed to death because it kept coming back over and over again, they took his goddamn _dreams_ man, this place took his _dreams_ away, his frickin' _dreams,_ the one place you should be able to escape, so what the hell are you going to do outside of have a drink before trying to sleep? Have at the bottle; you need it, because the number one thing you need in your life right now is a sex-sized bed because you are stuck in a twin right now and when you are trying to share it with someone it is terrible, and the last thing you need to do is have a freak out during all this. So you beat your life to death with a bottle. Why not. Working your job makes the general populace treat you like you're homeless and you can scream about it all you want but you might as well be underwater. Just switch out the liquid, forget the water and go drown in something else. It'll only hurt when you finally kill yourself. Maybe.

She yelled for him to stop. She ran.

The lights were dimming as she ran her fingers over the dongle for the engineering computer. She might only have a few minutes to grab the files, and her fingers were getting cold. Maybe that's why her aura was ebbing. Even as the download finished she was still panting from all the running. But now that she was finally done, she was going to have to make it back up that shaft, after making it through the halls again. She didn't have much air left. She closed all the apps that had been opened on her Scroll, closed out the pictures. The damn thing was almost out of battery.

It didn't matter, none of it mattered, she told herself this as she held the flashlight against her pistol grip, that way both hands would steady the weapon as she stalked the halls, wondering if it was even something she could shoot. The halls were too tight to swing a sword, even just the sheath. It was down to the gun. She didn't waste any time, power walking her way to and up the stairwell. As she ascended the shaft, pretty much at a run, she would put her panic at bay and take cover on occasion behind one of the machines. Doing so grounded her mind. What was going on was tangible. She was not crazy.

There really wasn't anything to say about going up the shaft; what concerned her was what she found in the machine bay, which was an assault rifle with no magazine, just chilling in the middle of the room. She hid underneath one of the machines and peered at it. She took the time to ditch the oxygen tank and catch her breath, making sure her vision wasn't doubled. It might have been good idea to go out and touch the weapon, make sure it was real, and that was also a great way to get shot. She didn't have the Aura for this. She didn't have the heart for this right now, but that was what half of the Job was; it was never, _ever_ that you _could_ do it. It was that you went and did it. If you always waited around until you could you never would. It's why so many people washed out of Adam's unit. It wasn't about working out and being big and perfect looking; what mattered was that you would drag yourself forward and finish what you started, even if you were missing pieces. So, nodding to herself, she slithered from machine to machine, not taking much of a break, no matter how bad her chest was heaving, how raw her throat was. Half the air she was sucking in was dust; she could actually feel it sticking to her insides. But if she coughed she would probably be shot.

Keep going.

That's what she would have done until she reached the reception area and saw the random crates that weren't there before, plus the slashes in the walls, and, right under feet, almost sending her into another involuntary split, empty bullet casings. She ran a hand over the White Fang logo on the crates, feeling that there wasn't a coating of dust on them. None of them were open, but were plenty heavy. It smelled a little bit like fuel, like Dust. Cables were heaped on one of the boxes, as were some small floodlight setups.

"What the hell…"

She was so in the zone that she wasn't even questioning why the Fang were here. Some part of her head, way in the back, said it was to find Nicky (or whatever her name was) because Bartlett said the robots were going after the Fang because of their part in the Fall; some of the Fang had been whacked, that's right. So, somehow, they knew this information was here, and ask about how later, because the Fang was here. Adam might be here.

Wait, were the Fang here?

She kicked at some of the bullet casings, looked at the slashes in the walls.

Time to go. Run. Now.

She was crouched in the vestibule when she heard the sound of the engines. The Bullhounds eventually came into view; they were circling the area. Blake wondered if they knew the power had come back on; maybe they thought the Fang did that. Except none of them seemed to be here anymore.

Anyone, or thing, with half a brain would know that the Fang hadn't even gotten inside yet when the power came back on. The Fang clearly brought some sort if ghetto generator setup, which had not been unboxed.

It was a question of how long were the Bullhounds going to sweep the whole area before they dropped boots on the ground to do an in-depth search.

Two poles extended from each of the Bullhounds, and silver haired girls began to attach to ropes on them, ready to fast deploy. Their voices played out over some speakers on the ships, as well as yelled out by each of the units, but their voices were all screwed up, each one stuttering in a different way, and all slightly out of synch, "Salutations! Our name is Nicky!"

They started hitting the ground as Blake began to belly crawl to a rusting car. Apparently, Nicky was made for security, and was combat ready; they called out that anyone out here was trespassing on private property, and would be punished with extreme prejudice.

Blake was glad that Bartlett hooked her up with extra ammunition, and even some Dust; she loaded some water bullets into a magazine, trying to make the mechanical clicking as muffled as possible against her chest. The water might work. It might not. It helped keep her mind calm if she told herself that it would work.

Nicky held their blades mostly by hand, throwing them out the same way; Penny's were wired to her back, and Nicky seemed to have the same setup, just without the Aura. Maybe Nicky could use magnets, who knows; a few of them actually did levitate the blades, but it wasn't for long. Doing that must have eaten up a lot of power.

Nicky used the blades mostly as a way to zip their way across the parking lot, a few of them climbing the face of the building. They didn't really need the blades. They were all holding assault rifles. Maybe they didn't know they were going up against Blake. Maybe their aim would be so good that all of them laser aiming on Blake would sap her Aura in seconds, all due to perfect sustained fire.

Maybe Blake was weak right now, already.

Would she be able to make it to the snowmobile, and ride back out to town without getting spotted by air? She should have grabbed one of the rifles. Maybe she could have taken down one of the Bullhounds.

She was crouched underneath some truck, maybe halfway through the lot. Unless she doubled back, there was no cover for the rest of the way. The Bullhounds were still buzzing above. Off to the left were a bunch of abandoned trailers. "Damnit." There really wasn't a choice. She was going to have to go for those.

A squad of them was getting closer. Blake looked at their eyes; they were twitching wildy, all over the place, while their heads stayed completely still. The machines were scanning faster than any person could. Their mouths worked lightly, saying out loud fragments that were probably complete sentences over their wireless communication: clear, no sign, scanning, and Blake was so fixated on this that it came as a surprise when she was dragged out by the ankle and held up in the air. She locked eyes with the Nicky, whose eyes were totally still, but mouth was fluttering faster than a fly's wings, going on about subject spotted or something because the words were all mushed together. Blake didn't even think, and shot Nicky in the face, double tap. Her head went back, and some of the skin was torn away, but she didn't let go of Blake's ankle. She spoke, "You would really shoot a little giiiiiiiiirlllll…"

Blake was now trying not to yell as she slashed at the Nicky's arm. The blade didn't cut through all the way, it was a bad swing on her part; the slice more or less created a new hinge in Nicky's forearm, causing her grip to loosen. Blake's head bounced off the ground, but she still crunched her abs and began to claw at, and then bite and tear at Nicky's fingers still wrapped around her ankle. The machine reeled back, still staring at the sky and jabbering, letting Blake go; she saw that two more of the things were now running towards her, getting their blades out via magnets or magic or who-freaking-cared, because another one had just jumped on top of the truck trailer, aiming a rifle at her. Blake rolled behind the Nicky that grabbed her, using it as shield when the rifle fire started. She fired back at the one on the truck, and then ran like hell for the maze of abandoned trailers.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some of the blades impact, and knew that the others were now yanking themselves towards her. She ran harder, fighting the urge to vomit. She wanted to smile when sliding under the trailers, except the Bullhounds started to rip them up.

Of course.

Why send in ground units when you could tear apart the trailers from above. Metal screamed and made like wrapping paper, coming down around her rent to scraps as she scrambled from trailer to trailer, now heading back towards the entrance. The Bullhounds would make passes, and during lulls in the gunfire, she started to thumb empty two separate magazines of bullets. She looked up at the lot. The Nickys were surrounding the trailers, even the one with the shot up face, all scanning as they got closer, trying to help zero in the aim of the Bullhounds. The sight of this made Blake's fingers not feel so numb anymore. With the two magazines empty, she filled one full of electric Dust, the other with fire. It was all she was going to get. Once done, she continued her way through the trailers as they were shredded into metal confetti above her.

Bullets ricocheted and bounced wildly like sparks. One Nicky went down, her foot split almost entirely in half down the length. She sat on the pavement and watched from a distance, shouldering her rifle. Blake didn't like the sight of that.

The next light break in the gunfire saw her running like crazy towards the vestibule, firing the lightning at the robots on the ground. There were a few hits, and the machines shook and rolled their eyes upwards, rapidly moving their mouths and fingers as they twitched and twitched, some smoke escaping their ears and noses. Blake wasn't thinking much; she knew she had to get inside, and knew that the ships needed to follow her. Was she fast enough? She never was Ruby fast, but that was pretty much cheating, come on. This wasn't a mad dash forwards, this was jumping and vaulting while pumping your legs and the wind stinging your eyes. This was every part of you moving _perfect_ as you ran, not losing a single second, even as you heard bullets snapping past the speed of sound, even as you heard the whirring of the Bullhound guns starting up, getting ready to cut you like soft birthday cake, this was all you, something you worked for and made yourself able to do, you're a goddess, man, pure ability, you've finally become what you've been working for, frickin' untouchable. It all fell apart when she skidded into the vestibule and wiped out on the floor, moving too fast to slow down, her chest heaving against all the dust stuck to her lungs, barely able to stop herself from blanking out as she rolled out of the doorway and reloaded. She had seconds. The Nickys were almost there, and the Bullhounds were dropping altitude to fire right into the doorway, and wow.

Look at that.

Right next to each other.

Stupid.

She smashed open the White Fang crates, and found the box with fuel. She fired at the machines coming at her, causing them to lay on the ground, and summoning every bit of strength she had, reloaded her pistol with the fire Dust, grappled the fuel box, ran outside while dragging it, spun once, twice, thrice as the Bullhounds began to fire, and threw the box right at them.

She fell to the ground, sitting down with one leg under her, her other knee up, her right elbow resting on it, left hand holding her right forearm; pistol aimed at the box, she opened up full auto on it.

The fuel box exploded just as it impacted, and the hit ship veered and smashed into the other, with both of them crashing right down on the squads on the ground. Blake ran right back inside, racing the cloud of dust, smoke and madness that chased her from the parking lot.

She reloaded inside, caught her breath, and ran back out, grappling to the ceiling, and flipping herself over the wreckage.

It was a rain of bullets over the recovering machines. Blake only barely registered that some of them were picking up their own limbs.

It was her turn to shred.

She hit the ground and slid across the pavement, still taking shot after shot, dropping any that were still standing.

"You could, like, slide on the pavement and stuff?"

"Let her rest, guy…"

"Yeah. It was a little icy, but it was mostly the force. I'm fine. Kinda. I'll talk to him first, then sleep, Baron."

"Whoa, Belladonna. What happened next?"

She didn't really want to talk about it. But, leaving any functioning seemed a bad idea. Blake went from one to another, ending them. Each was still trying to broadcast, their eyes going totally nuts, but their faces were totally blank. No prayers, no begging, though some would smile at her, and it made her think of Penny as she shot them in the face, so she didn't want to talk about it. To pervert something like that was horrible. To do that to someone who couldn't fight back was unforgivable. She wanted to sleep now.

They left her alone, and Blake pretended to sleep until the nurse left; once that happened, Blake kept watching random videos on the local internet, lying on her side, from time to time forcing her eyes closed, but never for long.

¹³ Some words that are automatically corrected to have the first word capitalized: Sprint, Dodge, Ford, Trump, Twitter¹⁴, Fox, Bay, Facebook (if you start typing face it starts suggesting the whole thing), to name a few.

¹⁴ Whose logo is a bird.

15 Installing brakes would be expensive; power to the wheels on the tracks was simply cut, even if they still did slide after. Because there was no brakes. No, really, I'm serious.

16 People gain a lot of weight when they quit smoking; it might be the oral fixation. It's why a lot of models smoke(d), so they would stay thin; your appetite goes away.


	7. No Open Caskets

She was out of it for a while. Some days her head would keep pounding, other days it wouldn't. She pretty much lived in the infirmary, and it was remarked that she hadn't even seen her quarters yet. She didn't really care; the bed down here was fine enough.

She eventually started doing some exercises down there, and made sure to do them when the nurse or doctor wasn't around; she was supposed to be resting. In _her_ mind, she was supposed to be taking care of this situation (right goddamn _now_ ), but she was told that they still hadn't figured out which lab it was yet. This left her incredulous. What the hell were they doing? She started to wonder if Bartlett was going soft; maybe seeing her in the infirmary was making him lose his resolve on sending her in. What a jackass. He'd already made the decision to get her more involved, why not just finish it already. Come on. It wasn't like him suddenly feeling bad _now_ of all times was going to make everything okay. Actually, it was making it all worse. She didn't want to work under somebody gutless.

" _Ahhhhhhh...,"_ frustration vented, at both Bartlett and herself; maybe they _were_ still trying to figure out the data. She wondered where the lab was, the server, whatever. It must be somewhere remote. Bartlett said his men had their suspicions about it, but that was about it. There was a good chance that they were going to be confirmed real soon.

So, she was down in the infirmary doing push-ups when the lights started flickering. This got her to stop, crouch, and listen. Probably paranoia, but then she heard muffled gunfire. A few bursts, then a lot. And then Bartlett's voice boomed out over the loudspeaker for Blake to get the hell out of the infirmary and try to call him.

The lights died for a moment, then the backup generators kicked on. Blake silenced her Scroll (she was glad that Bartlett hadn't been stupid enough to set her ringer off), and started to slink towards the exit.

Someone was lying in the doorway.

She moved back to the beds, looking at the ceiling. It was made of those little foam tiles that you could push upwards, so she did that while standing on her bed, found a sturdy pipe, replaced the tile, and hung up there, wrapping her arms and legs around it, pressing her belly to the pipe. She left a little sliver of an opening in the tile, and watched the room below her over her shoulder.

The body in the doorway was dragged off, and in came Nicky, and then two more. They started tearing down the curtains around the beds, ripping up the whole room, even looking inside cabinets.

Blake really needed her Shroud. She had no idea where it was.

Her Scroll started vibrating, so she shut it off. No one below her noticed it.

After they tore the room apart and checked the shower-all were doing that weird fragmented mumbling they were doing in the mines-they left. Blake waited a few minutes before letting herself down from the ceiling. Crouching near the doorway, she turned on her Scroll and called Bartlett.

"Blake!"

"Yo."

"I'm in the air!"

"Are you kidding me?!"

"They're all over, we're turning back around! You didn't see them swarm in! There wasn't really a plan, I don't know, they just rushed in, too fast for anyone to react! We got up, and I'm circling around to pick up more of you!"

"Is Wolfe with you?"

"I don't know where he is! I was lucky, I was near my Bullhound! I'm flying right now, but the guards are having an issue getting in the air! I dropped off some of my people in the middle of nowhere where it was safe, and are heading back!"

"If it's that bad, stay up there. Pick them back up and head to that nearby city."

"I don't know if the other ships are going to get off the ground! My men are getting some anti-air missiles ready!"

"They have air here?! Nicky?!"

"Yeah, after they jumped the fences and tore in, they started dropping more off on the roof!"

"How many are there?"

"I have no idea, a lot! Over thirty!"

"Oh my god…"

"Get the hell outta the basement! Don't go to the lake!"

"Where's my goddamn weapon?!"

"...at the quartermaster, by the lake…"

"I'm heading to the lake, then. I'll move back up when I'm done."

"They're all over it!"

"I need that gun. Okay? I need it. I'm not abandoning it now. And if there is a fight, I can help and weed out their numbers. Don't call me, I'll call you. Okay?"

"Don't…!"

She hung up and started towards the elevator… after she got dressed.

\ \ \ / / /

There weren't many in the basement, just a few setting up some kind of charge on the elevator; the blast shook the whole building, and the sound the elevator made as it screeched all the way down to the lake caused her to cover her ears and gnash her teeth. This was fine though, she didn't want to take the elevator. That would have announced to everyone that she was coming.

Once the elevator was destroyed, the Nickys ran back up to the mayhem upstairs. After waiting a moment, Blake walked over and stared down the shaft. Time for a new landing strategy.

There were plenty of supports and struts along the edge of the shaft, and enough light for her to see fine as she jumped down on whatever narrow surface presented itself. This was much easier than she thought it was going to be.

It became clear as she made her way down, that this being as easy as it was right now? was the best bit of luck she'd gotten in a month.

Very depressing.

The bottom of the shaft was a tangled mess of metal and swirling smoke. Outside, she heard a lot of yelling and shooting, as well as some calm female voices asking that everyone settle down and put their weapons away, it would make things a lot nicer. Nobody was having any of that, and vile epithets were hurled at the machines, who were using their blades to stick the walls and ceiling, flying around a small last bastion of soldiers who had made a circle of cover out of desks and random objects.

Blake was able to peep from the ruined shaft and see a caged area where the weapons were kept; since all the Nicky were looking towards that final stand of soldiers, she was able to sprint easily over, ignore the Shroud, and start scooping up grenades. She crouched behind a box, looked at where the robots were, ten of them, and took aim while calculating. She pulled the pin on all of the grenades, making them live, waited a few seconds, and threw the first at the last possible moment. It detonated right before it would have landed near a three of the machines, a surprise explosion smashing them against a wall. Blake was rapid-fire throwing the grenades, one after the other, creating a very quick and violent series of blast, at the end of which all the Nickys were destroyed, and the soldiers behind the cover were very confused, with one even shooting at Blake as she walked out with the Shroud.

She dusted herself off after getting up from being prone on the floor, "You're welcome."

"Goddamnit, Travis!" A burly looking man, clearly the senior of the group, waved a Blake, "Where the hell did you come from!"

"Came down the shaft. Huntress, remember?"

"Thank the gods, and thank you. We were out of ammo." A whole bunch of the soldiers ran past Blake and started grabbing up bullets and such from the caged area. The senior man said, "We have someone coming to get us, we're going to set up a defence and wait…"

"I'm heading back up, I came down for this and to help anyone here."

"...Alright. I don't know how you can get out back up there, though."

"I think I can make it to town, I don't think they are crazy enough to shoot up a city street in public. Yet."

"Yeah. Good luck."

"Yup. Same to you." She used the grapple scythe and started to yank herself back up the shaft.

\ \ \ / / /

During her ascent, she took a very quick break to check her Scroll and call Wolfe, but got no answer. She called Bartlett instead, telling him that the lake was clear for the moment, and he said back that another ship was going to get those guys, that one of the enemy ships was down, but there still was another. He asked if there was a way to get people down to the lake, but she let him know about the elevator. He swore violently, and the conversation ended.

Gunfire was general in the manor now, spitting out of windows, down hallways. She jogged her way around, trying to get to Wolfe's room. There was a window to her left in the hall, and out it, into the front yard of the manor, she saw Bridget and the others from the parlor that day climbing into a Bullhound. Bridget looked towards the house and spotted Blake through the window; she began to beckon madly, waving her hands to the pilot to wait. Blake held up a single index finger towards Bridget and mouthed, "Not yet," and continued on.

There was a smell of smoke; the place was being set on fire. There was no tactical reason for that to be done, only simple madness and rage, but being carried out by girls with blank faces. Blake spied some of them reaching into a fireplace, taking out burning pieces of wood, and touching them to whatever was around, starting with window curtains.

The sound of gunfire was lessened over time. More of the soldiers were getting out, some even running across the snow towards the road to town. An explosion shook the ceiling, dropping dust, and out the window a Bullhound went down in flames. A man lay burning in a door frame; Blake stepped over him.

Her eyes were blocked by the smoke, but Nicky's were not, so when Blake finally saw her, it was too late. A blade was hovering over Nicky's head like a scorpion's tail, pointed right towards Blake. The tip of the blade twitched, and that's when Wolfe tore out from a doorway where he was hiding, waiting to catch Blake's attention. He had seen the robot before Blake did, and knew that even Belladonna wasn't going to be able to react in time. So, he rushed the robot, throwing his shoulder into the stomach of it, hoping like hell his yelling would get Blake to snap out of it and, "Shoot the bitch! Oh, god, please, shoot her…!"

Blake fired twice into the robot's head, peeling away much of its white skin and knocking its head back so it was staring at the ceiling, barely hanging on from the force of the bullets, but now the thing had one hand on the collar of Wolfe's shirt, twisting it in her hands so it began to choke him. Blake drew her blade, and started to stab Nicky in the neck over and over, yanking on the robot's hair hair, pulling its head downwards; the metal was too tough for her to cut the head right off, and that was going to be the only way to drop the robot quickly. So, she kept stabbing at the neck, yanking its hair, while Wolfe feebly punched at its stomach. Blake started yelling in anger, yanking down harder and harder on Nicky's hair, until the wiring and skin stretched so far that the head fell backwards, held together by only strips; its knees buckled, and the three of them fell to the floor, with Wolfe and Blake gasping.

They stayed like that for a moment, before Wolfe wiped the tears out his eyes and said, "...called you… earlier…" He tugged at the robot hand still lightly holding his shirt.

"...you almost got me caught… don't do that…"

"Yeah…? Well… what was I supposed to do…?"

"I don't know… you ready to go? I don't think there are any of them on the roof, so we can just run up there and wait for a ship." She untangled herself and stood, sheathing her blade.

Wolfe coughed and nodded, "Yeah, let's…"

Nicky blinked, the hanging head still working, looking backwards and down the hall, towards a corner maybe ten feet away, where she was in communication with a few of her sisters. She re-tightened her grip on Wolfe's shirt, and threw him backwards towards her sisters before Blake could draw her blade. Wolfe didn't make a sound, didn't seem to know what happened, and didn't scream as they began to carve him up. Blake stood over the robotic arm she just severed, watching the scene for a moment, before running towards a window and jumping out into the front yard. The Nicky sitting on the ground was laughing at her the whole while.

The snow was up to Blake's knees, and her lungs felt like they were going to burst as she powered through it. She sprayed a few bullets at the mansion, which now had an odd glow about it. A few flashes appeared in its windows, and bullets began to tear up the snow around her. She adjusted her aim somewhat, taking as careful shots as was possible, and kept running as hard as she could. The gunfire eventually ceased, and she saw some of them were climbing out the windows towards her. She ran harder, getting her Scroll out.

"Bartlett! That wasn't you who was shot down, right?"

"We took out their ships, I'm still in the air… is that you?! Wave! Wave right now!"

She waved, and finally saw him, a speck way out there but closing fast.

"Are you safe?!"

"No! I'm being chased!"

"Okay, keep going! It's fine!" He then started yelling something, it sounded like it was directed towards someone else, and then the line went dead.

Blake looked back over her shoulder. Five of them, all struggling through the snow, some falling over. Of course, they were much heavier than Blake was. Would that make it harder? It looked like. Regardless, they were gaining, because Blake was running out of breath now.

She could hear the Bullhound, and watched with horror as it stopped and turned, hovering. She began to wave her arms and scream, "What the hell are you doing?!" before there was a few pops. Five of them. Then the Bullhound resumed course towards her.

Her legs were burning, and her throat was closing up due to all the cold air she was gulping down. She could barely see as the snow was kicked up by the ship. Just as it was touching the ground she reached it, screaming at the sniper to lift off, to go, why was he just sitting there… and then she followed his finger, seeing the headless robots in the snow. Blake finally realized she was talking to a sniper with a very large rifle. He handed her a headset and shut the door while she put it on; after, turned to her her and said into his mic, "You're welcome."

"Yeah… um, thanks. Nice shooting."

"Yup."

A new voice over the headphones. "Blake, is that you?!"

"Yeah, it's me, Baron."

"Alright!" The Bullhound now really lurched as it speed away. "Are you okay?"

"I'm all right."

"Did you see anyone else still there?"

"...no. They killed anyone else I think."

"A crew is going in soon. I don't think there are many left. We'll check and see if anyone else is alive."

Blake hugged her knees in her seat.

\ \ \ / / /

They stopped off in town for a single night, and then moved deeper in country. The data was passed off to a second unit that followed them but stayed in a different part of this new city. Bartlett learned that Wolfe was dead, after he gave Blake money for new clothes; nothing much had survived the fire.

She spent the whole day in a funk, wandering the market streets all alone after telling Bartlett what happened, and after she bumped into Bridget while leaving the hotel. Bridget tapped her shoulder in the lobby, and asked if Blake was alright. She merely shrugged back to the heiress, unwilling to hasten to the call of the mild. "Leave me alone."

Bridget grabbed Blake's elbow, and said, "What is wrong with you? We were all in that house."

"My friend is dead."

"I'm sorry. My old nanny is dead. The house I grew up in burned. Okay? This is a time we need to be together "

"...I'm sorry."

"...I am too. Just… look… you don't know what I've been through… so please, don't just shut me out. You seriously have no idea what I am like, who I am."

"I feel like I've had this conversation before…," and she looked down at her boots.

"Yeah, well, have it again. Don't just, like, leave us here…"

"I need to be alone for now." And then she left.

\ \ \ / / /

Blake wanted to scream in rage as she walked down the street. Her one close ally for the past few months was dead, and a small part of her said it was sad that Wolfe was the closest thing to a friend she had these days, and another part chastised her for rejecting the Bartletts so bad.

Everyone outside was walking around shopping. Inspecting their cars, looking at maybe a scratch on the door. Pulling their children around by the hand, whose mouths were covered with some kind of candy. A bored-looking cop directing traffic. Couples at a coffee shop, a different patron furiously writing something in a notebook and looking smug about it. Flocks of women looking at department store windows. Packs of men becoming interested in the women. An empty cloudless sky above it all.

She didn't know how far she walked, only that she was going in circles, like she did way before. That one cop now saw that she was passing for the umpteenth time, and looked like he was going to say something to the teenager trudging down the street, a girl who seemed she was doing the walk of shame after a long night of partying; Blake locked eyes with him for a second, and then walked into the nearest store. There was no fear or anything, but more an annoyance from Belladonna.

She was descended on immediately by some clerk or something who seemed very nice but clearly wanted her out, so she held up the lien Bartlett gave her and said, "This is my budget. I want to get a few things." The clerk smiled and said he knew just who to grab to help the fine young lady.

She was lead around the store by a young woman who was probably only a few years older than her, who squawked around on chicken legs that ticked and scratched at the floor in high heels. She showed Blake this and that. Blake asked how tough any of this material was. The woman seemed a little confused. Blake said that her father was an explorer of sorts, and Blake was now going on expeditions with him. She needed something that looked great but might have to take a beating.

The woman bought this lame excuse for some reason. Maybe she just didn't want to deal with this kid for long. Maybe she was waiting for this kid to actually say what she wanted instead of just standing there looking disapprovingly at their stock; it was like a child who refused to eat the meal their parents made, and then not saying what they _would_ like to eat, expecting one item after another to be brought to them for approval. All these spoiled rich kids were the same, the young woman thought. These expeditions were probably the hardest work this girl did, and what did her and her father really do outside of them? Whatever. "We have this jacket here… being that it looks like you really don't have much winter clothes."

"...white?"

"Why, yes, white!"

"I really don't wear much white…"

"Well, you are right now!"

"Yeah, I have some white on, but, not, like, all over…"

The woman sensed something in Blake, even if Blake didn't know it was there. So, she took the jacket off the display and said to Blake, "Here, try it on!"

"Um… I…"

"Come on!" She smiled at Blake.

Blake put the long, duster-like coat on, and stood in front of the mirror. "Huh."

"I love that trim on the inside. You know, in the right light it looks a bit purple, at least to me. And feel that coat! Seems tough, right?"

"Um… actually, yeah, seems a bit tear resistant… is it… leather?"

"Oh, no, no, no! Feels like it, though! Right? We actually have the technology to make actually good fake leather, these days!"

"Hmmm…"

"You need something to wear underneath it, though. Something… not so busy. I mean, no offense, but you have a lot going on with… the tights and everything… here!"

"Those pants look real tight."

They're pliable! Try them on!"

Several articles of clothing were gathered. While she was trying them on in a fitting cubicle, Blake asked to the young woman waiting for her just outside, "Um, if you don't mind me asking…? How old are you?"

"Me? Twenty-four."

"Ah."

"I'm not so _old!_ Ha ha! Don't say it like _that!"_

"I didn't mean anything…"

"I remember being school age! How old are you, young lady?"

"Nineteen."

"Oh, wow! You look a bit younger! No offense… but, um, you still carry yourself like a proper young lady that age! Such confidence! Though dressing busy like that clashes with your demeanor a bit. Still, I remember that age! School… boys… um, ah, boys…?"

"Sure… um, boys…"

"Well, I… or is it _boy,_ hmm?"

"Well, uh, like… kinda… he's… uh…"

The woman laughed. "Oh, don't let me pry! I remember being a bit bashful. School is so rough sometimes, all your studies, and how some of those boys can be. Life is so simple right now for you. Just wait a bit! It always gets _soooo_ much more complicated! I hope he is a nice boy."

"He's a bit clingy."

"Ah, I get it. Constantly pestering you for… well, _you know…_ ugh."

Blake seemed to choke on something. "No! That's not it at all! He's… never made a pass like that… he… I don't know… it's so weird talking about this… he…," a sigh, "he made me go to dance-that I wanted to skip out on-with him once…"

"Oh… oh, are you shy?"

"-"

"Are you okay in there?"

"I don't know if _shy_ is the word I would use…"

"So that means you're shy."

"I just have other things to do."

"That settles it. You really must be a bit shy. You always just have something to do, huh? Anytime something comes up? Or is it easier to deal with 'stuff?' It's just easier to deal with things, or tackle things together, so your interaction with people can be at an angle, then, not right on. Instead of focusing on the other person, and him on you, there is a distraction. It's okay! I won't judge. Though you have to be careful with that. Trying to attach yourself to people while you are working towards something, instead of paying attention to each other, can be bad. Sometimes, you don't know too much about a person until it's too late. Like, maybe you only know him tangendently, and the one day you really find out who he is, things fall apart, and _badly."_

"-"

"I know it's weird growing up with people like me prying, and with the responsibility of studying and getting a good job, getting an apartment… oh, what a nightmare _that_ is, lemme tell you! Sorry about prattling on like this… but us girls really gotta stick together. There's a lotta fun to be had, though! It's not all scary!"

"Yep…"

"So, next time you see that boy… maybe really sit down with him. Talk to him."

"Honestly, if he just showed up out of nowhere, like right behind me, I'm not sure how I would react. It would be a bit creepy. And very stupid on his part."

"What, like here in the store? Actually, that would be really weird…"

"Even moreso because we met in Vale. And went to School there."

"Which school? The Arts school or the Law school?"

"...I have an interest in Civil Liberties…"

"Oh, my, such a bright young girl! But, is the school still standing…?"

"Yeah, but classes are on hold now."

"That must be rough! That will make becoming a lawyer a real pain! Is that what you're going for? That would make defending Civil Liberties a reality."

"...yup. Sure."

"Though I've never seen a lawyer wear a bow before…"

"They'll be a day when I won't have to wear it. Okay." Blake walked out, and did a slow spin for the woman.

The woman clapped her hands lightly. "Oh! You look ready for a trek! But you also look pretty smart and professional! As long as you keep the coat on. Are you sure you don't want anything with sleeves?"

"I have some other shirts…"

"Do you want to take a look for more right now?"

"...maybe another day."

"Well, that's okay! Wow! You look _much_ more like an adult, dressed like that! Though the duster would be a bit silly outside Atlas… still, you look _very_ professional. And even a bit cute with the bow! Now… here, listen real quick. Here's some advice."

"...okay."

"You look ready to tackle the next big problem. However… keeping distant like that doesn't really make you seem mature, but shy. Try to emote a bit. Smile. Not too much, though. Wearing that… you look a bit scary, which is good! _Definitely_ be a bit intimidating. Make 'em respect you. But the bow shows you have a softer side. Which works.

"You'll have to carry yourself like a real young lady, now. You can't afford to move around like you were when you came in here. It doesn't matter if you keep your carriage erect when you walk around; you still looked like a moper. There was an aura around you. You need to be ready to accept what is coming, and deal with it, instead of deflecting. You can't let your emotions ride you too hard, like they already do. I can tell that's how it is with you. Putting forth an air of lack of emotion shows that you are scared of those emotions that are within you; you're afraid they will run amok. So, you bury them. Us adults can see that. It's like when someone doesn't want to drink; you _know_ that they have an issue with handling it. So, they avoid it. It's the same for a lack of emotions. But those emotions will build and build. You _have_ to face them, miss. You _have_ to. Otherwise… they'll get right up on top of you, and after they've had their way, you won't even know who you are anymore, if you can even really call yourself in control. If you wear that, look like that, ditch the kiddie tights and show-off ankle boots... you need to also become it. Otherwise, it's just a sad costume. Okay?"

"...y-yeah…"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, honey! I got real deep there for a second! I guess it's what us adults do! It's done to us our whole lives when we're young, but as soon as we get the chance, we jump all over the next kid in line! It's not fair, but… hey, I was only born. You okay, sweetie?"

"...yeah. Yes. Thank you." She smiled.

The woman walked Blake up to the register. After paying, Blake started back to the hotel. She caught a reflection of herself in a window. Blake nodded at it. Yes, the white of the coat would be okay for the snow. And if needed, maybe she could take it off and use the black pants, hugging her very tight, to blend into the dark. The black shirt was also able to breathe, so she wouldn't feel nearly as confined in it as she did in her last outfit. It felt loose. And those boots looked _really_ cool…

She stood a bit straighter, thinking. After a shrug she twirled a bit. She shrugged off the tactics. With this coat, she looked like a Grim tamer from an old circus. She almost wanted to strike a pose, as if ready to strike with a big whip. And those boots… hell yeah. She looked awesome. Heh. What would Sun think? Bet he'd fall over backwards. She looked at her back in the reflection. Yeah. The pants were a tease with this coat in. You'd want to see the back, but… nope! Blake smiled. This shirt was awesome. It went right with her skin tone. Heh. She was going to outdress Yang… Weiss. She wanted to show this off. She knew Ruby would gush, as her wont.

What the hell was she doing?

Having a bit of goddamn fun. Who cares.

People were dead… but if she let her emotions get on top of her, then she wouldn't be able to do anything about it. She couldn't get wound up. She had to try.

As she walked past the cop again, she threw him a wink.

She was going to end this. Now.

\ \ \ / / /

She spent about an hour and a half in her room, reading the news off her Scroll. There weren't many books stored on her mobile; she was one of those hipsters that preferred physical media, actual books, for their weight and the smell of the pages and the rustling of paper and all that bullsh-t; as a result, all her books were still in Beacon, falling apart from neglect. At least they were ad and notification-free.

Being that this was swirling around her mind, she wasn't absorbing much of what she was reading, finding herself at the bottom of an article and not even remembering what the title was; you start reading a paragraph, and then you wonder what you are going to eat for dinner, followed by chastising yourself for letting your mind wander; you wonder why your mind wanders, realise you kept going through the article and now have to go back to that first paragraph and start over. You feel like an idiot, like someone losing their grip. Ugh. Stop thinking about your idiocy; you have to start the paragraph over again. Maybe the whole article.

Blake began to skip from story to story, trying to find one that would hold her attention. It took a while before she finally admitted to herself there wasn't any. Her eyes stayed on the window for some time, tracing the outlines of clouds. She was sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair sideways, turned away from the little desk in her room, left arm on the backrest and propping up her head lazily, covering her mouth, nose sticking just over it. It didn't feel right to move. There was something hypnotic about how she was slumped. Her new pants felt tight on her legs in a strange way that she liked, and she spent some time thinking about how weird that was. She liked the feeling on her skin. Something about this girl and tight clothes, despite the fact that you had to be practically militant when it came to shaving your legs. Good God, the itchiness.

It took a few minutes for her to get up when Bartlett called for her; and she didn't move quickly down to his room, either. Her cat ears twitched in a girlish way with how her boots echoed down the hall, the wood floors sounding out through the long rugs laid over the ; they sounded all reverbed out, like cowboy boots in an old movie, heels clunking down hard. A dull, but big sound. She could feel the sound in her molars a bit. Was that synesthesia? or was she just going insane, or finding excuses not to go talk to Bartlett. Finding reasons to take her time. She felt floaty, and comfortable, like when you curl up on your couch or something, wrapped up in a blanket. Cozy. Right in her chest.

She drew some deep breaths, and tried to kill the feeling. It was a good feeling. That cozy feeling you don't want to lose. Her mind was coming up with excuses, basic, simple excuses. It was nice and warm in this hotel.

The number of dead was way higher than twenty-three now.

She stalked off towards Bartlett's room, which had a goddamn balcony, she saw as she entered, and even a fireplace, up on the second floor. Second floor was the top floor, here; it wasn't a big place, but it was a building you were meant to rent out entirely. So, "hotel" in name only. A little temporary home. She was shocked to find that he wasn't wearing fuzzy slippers; the ones this hotel provided were awesome.

Bartlett was seated at a round table, looking out to his balcony. He tossed a folder onto it, which slid towards Blake. "It's there."

She picked it up, and started to flip through it. She narrowed her eyes. "The hell do I do with this."

"I really don't have much else. I'm not up for flying."

"It's highlighted here that there is a railroad within four miles of the place or something."

"It used to actually split and go…"

"Go to a hangar or some crap attached to the base, I see that, now. I can follow the old tracks, if they aren't buried under the snow."

"They're probably ripped up."

She took a picture of something in the folder. "Well, I have a map. I can infer."

"You just gonna jump off the civvie train?"

"I guess. What do you want me to do."

"I want this over with."

"You aren't alone or special in wanting that."

"This has gotten far out of control. Here. Take this memory stick, and plug it into the server. It will upload something that will start broadcasting to the units, causing their brains to wipe. If you can just upload that, you can end it without firing a shot."

"That would be preferred. But the power must still be on in the lab. That means cameras, auto-guns, and who knows what else. But I don't see an estimate on what the defenses are. I'm just going to assume all your original security measures are up. What are my chances in getting past them all alone."

"Slim."

She threw the folder down. "Then what the hell is this, then."

"I don't know, Blake. I don't know."

She pulled a chair out noisily and sat across from him. He lazily turned his head towards her. She tossed her hair. "You didn't even notice my outfit. Typical man."

"You still wear a gun."

"And a bow. You have something you want to say to me, Bartlett."

"I don't know. Everything has fallen apart, and I have no idea how long we're safe here. I don't know your chances of making it in there, but we really don't have a choice. Mostly because I don't think you are going to wait for me to get you backup before you go in. And if any backup I got would be helpful, anyway."

"You're clenching your jaw."

"I'm going to order some coffee. You want some?"

"I'll take tea. A black tea. I want to wake up."

He ordered over the phone.

"It sucks your house burned down, but this isn't the time to get upset about it."

"I'm not taking a speech from a teenager."

"I lost a friend in there, too."

"Were you really friends with that guy?"

The drinks arrived.

"Sure," she said.

"Didn't ever really seem it."

"Maybe not. Maybe I'm just being nice to him because he's dead now. Either way, we went through some crap together. It's not right, how he ended up in all this."

"He was a fence and backroom dealer. At some point, someone was going to get him, either the cops or someone who he pissed off."

"There's more to him that that. There always is. To anyone."

"You have a habit of picking up terrible people as friends."

"I think he was just stranded here… there, in Vale. Nowhere to go. He just… had to survive."

"He was just a criminal."

"He was a _life."_

"What?"

"He was a person. A life. _Every_ death is a failure. Our failure as protectors. And if they were on a path that lead to dying, that's our shame. We have to carry it."

"Your poor shoulders. Your heavy ego is wearing them out. To think you can do all that…," and he let the words fall.

"At least I do think about something other than profit margins."

"And what _do_ you do? You fight. You kill."

"I _don't_ kill…"

"You've killed Grimm, and now you're going to kill Nicky. Or Penny. Whatever it is. _She_. It had an aura… she had a soul. And maybe she does again. And she isn't going to stop. She is going to have to be stopped.

"You were part of the White Fang under Adam Taurus, and his merry band of psychopaths. Not with Sienna Kahn, with the rest of the main rabble, who were bad enough, mind you. Taurus was already being whispered about in special forces circles, you know. Hell… you think he'd take over the whole group? Even if it meant…? Heh. The look on your face right now. But maybe he would do it, take her out, Kahn. He wants the power enough. He is crazy enough. You know, it's rumored he helped with killing that board of directors? That he was one of the masked beheaders in that released video? Forcing them all to their knees in front of that window… Using a knife, my god… and you were part of his special team in the Fang. What does that say about you? Look at you, with that damn sword on your back. You ever take it off? Does any hunter? What's with that? Spoiling for a fight? As long as you carry that thing around, you're going to find use for it."

Bartlett shrugged. "And that's why you're heading into the cold, and I'm gonna stay right here, and call my daughter and ask how she is." He didn't smirk. He didn't want to. His disappointment was too great in Blake. What a waste of talent, in love with something that would _never_ love her back. Those stupid ideals. Violence in itself is kind of running away. Instead of thinking your way through the problem, instead of facing it, you smash it until it's gone. That's why the simple, brutal way is just that, simple. You can't figure it out. So, you destroy it. It's like running away. You run from the problem, maybe what it means, what caused it. You go out of your way to destroy it.

Look what happened to the Faunus. People didn't want to deal with them. So, they got shipped out to that crappy desert island.

Blake downed her cup of still-hot tea like a shot of liquor, and then put it upside down on the doily, the leaves falling out and spoiling it. She turned her back and headed for the balcony railing outside. He shouted, "Tch, child!" at her back, but she stood on the ledge and let herself plunge forward off it. There was no force, life, in the jump. She only spread her arms and just let herself fall, as if she didn't care anymore what happened.

\ \ \ / / /

There was no plan. She was only moving towards her goal, sitting on a train she snuck onto. Her map app on her Scroll wasn't updating so good anymore, so it was going to come down to a guess as to when to jump off the train. Hopefully, it was real soon; she was getting sick of dodging the ticket collector.

How many more times was she just going to wing it into danger like this? Sun wasn't here to back her up like back in Vale, and she suddenly found herself missing him terribly. That boy was such an idiot. Why would he follow her into danger like that? Such a total moron. She giggled to herself a bit. He actually went with her undercover to a White Fang meeting where they unveiled a goddamn mech suit, _which then chased them._ And blew up a huge section of highway. She was a real bitch, wasn't she? She never even gave him a kiss. I mean, a girl doesn't owe a guy anything, "favors" when someone is nice to them, but damn, she only, lol, went to a dance with him once. That boy was an idiot. Or… no, she wasn't the kind of person who would be hard to get, and he the type… don't think about it. Not right now, at least.

Crap, she was kinda a bitch, wasn't she?

She really did miss him now, though. And she was even a little mad at him. Why should he waste his time on someone like her? Such an idiot. She hoped he was okay. Had moved on.

This might be the last time she runs into danger like this. She was probably going to die. She wasn't thinking about it at all, had been thinking less and less as time went on. What did she really want. Why would she throw herself into this sort of thing.

She went back to her maps for a moment, and then looked out the window. The train was on a very long and slow turn through a huge, flat expanse of nothing but snow. There was absolutely nothing out there, no mountains in the distance, and even the sky was gray. There was nothing but an old signal, something for changing tracks. It was right there; there was where she needed to jump.

She rose from her seat in the dining car, leaving some tea there. She hadn't drank a drop; as she walked away, the full kettle and cup looked as if it had been left for someone who never arrived. Her walk was slow and deliberate; she didn't care. Some people looked at her, most didn't. She didn't even stop to see if anyone was going to notice her going to the connection vestibule and start yanking the emergency door open. She made sure to hack at the wires on the door, of course, bypassing the alarm, which was nothing to difficult; who was ever going to do that? cut the alarm on a train? Subverting that wasn't like subverting an alarm system in a jewelry store; it wasn't a priority for the designers.

Her yanking and cutting a bit at the door itself was pretty loud. Still, after it was forced open and she jumped out, the train kept going; no emergency brakes went off. Like said before, it wasn't designed for a hunter (why label her by gender, she thought) to have a go at it, because why would one do that?

She landed in the snow, and smiled when she saw how wrong Bartlett was. Of course the tracks were still there.

It would have cost money to remove them.

She followed them, her Aura keeping the cold at bay, for now.

\ \ \ / / /

They must have sat in the snow, rows of them, out in the cold. Their eyes doing that creepy thing they were doing before, twitching all over the places in their sockets, scanning the skies for any airships incoming. Nickys' mouths would have been moving, talking lightly to themselves as they broadcast their findings back to the base a half-mile away. The airships had flown in brazenly, not bothering to hide at all. Why would they. There was no anti-air at this facility. But Nicky and all her little sisters had grapple blades, and the ones out here, sitting half-buried in the snow, had jumped up onto the ships, clusters of them like bees on a flower, or more like bees on an intruder, stinging and stinging away. A lot of the airships went down. Parts were strewn all over from the onslaught of killer little girls tearing at the hulls; Nicky wasn't spared any of the carnage, either. As some of the ships went down, the units were scraped into the ground.

The soldiers must have landed their Bullhounds here, further up, not wanting to have any more crashes. All these ships were upright and on their landing gear, though were torn up at some later point. Blake figured that they landed here, set up a quick defense by forming a circle with the ships, and sent the rest of the troops into the lab. The defenses were overrun at some point, and all the ships were useless, as were all the soldiers scattered around it, some still steaming in the cold. Not one Nicky was standing though. An absolute draw. Just a meat grinder for the young. No winner. Everyone died. She caught sight of the logo on one of the ships. Deep Six. How in the hell had they found this place? Well… if anyone else was going to find it, it was them. Blake wondered if Nicky had started to target their members as well. She looked at the number of ships that crashed. Wow. They must have sent close to one hundred men. Just… wow.

From where the Bullhounds landed was only maybe a fifty foot run to the base. There were a few crashed ships here, probably gunships covering the charging soldiers. Whoever was still alive used explosives on the front door of the three story tall building, which looked more like a hanger than anything; this place was just a big, long box, a giant rectangle, and that front door, by the way, was made of two huge slabs of metal that slid apart to let the train in. There actually seemed to be no other doors, or windows, and the whole building was painted white. She swept away some of the snow on the train tracks, and laughed when she saw when they were painted white, too. Yet they never removed that signal. Ah, well. You probably couldn't leave it entirely unmarked and invisible.

The soldiers massacred their way into the train pen, using some huge super weapons that Blake couldn't recognise. There were rotating barrels on the end of these large, bulky guns; the bodies of the weapons were as wide as a propane tank, and there were three of the rotating barrels attached to them…, "Oh my God…," men in huge armor handled these, trailing behind bigger men carrying a huge, steel riot-shield in either hand… and the rotating barrels looked like they could detach from the base of the weapon; that's how you reloaded the weapons. Yeah. Those rotating barrels held rockets, and a third soldier, following the first two, would reload the weapon for the guy firing the rockets. Holy crap. They weren't playing around.

She was crouched in the doorway, in shadow, looking at the destruction; these guys had blown the ever living hell out of the train pen. Some Nickys must have dropped on them from the ceiling, though; some of the rocket teams were cut up pretty bad, their helmets split open at the very top. These rocket teams kept on going further and further in, getting picked off one by one, but not until they blew apart who knew how many robots.

"God…"

She was sneaking around, now, pistol at the ready. Eventually, the rocket teams were all killed. They never made it out of the train pen. Now, judging by some torn up guy holding what looked a portable chaingun, a new kind of ultramurder pushed inward.

You either went up one of the many sets of stairs, or maybe an elevator, to the second floor, and this is where the labs were. She didn't need to break in; the Six had done it for her again. Broken people and machines were scattered all over the place. Glass shattered. Whole walls eradicated. Desks in splinters. It seemed like the Six's strategy was to bum rush the facility, smashing everything in their path. Or maybe things had gotten so desperate that they ran forward in a panic. Computers, machinery for tumbling samples, or testing metals or fluids, dry erase boards crammed full of calculations, were marred by all the death sprayed around. Not one lab or random office was left clean. Holes were smashed in from the ceiling, smashed downwards, were Nicky must have rained herself down on the invaders from the upper floor.

The silence was creeping up Blake's spine, tickling the back of her mind. She didn't want to stay here, wandering the halls, looking at this. She grappled up one of the holes, as quietly as she could, to the office complex.

This is where the paper pushing was done. This whole floor. This is where the power meetings were held. The server itself was underground, but there was an access point up here. There were no lights on, just the emergency ones. The fight made its way up here as well. Though, there weren't as many bodies. There simply hadn't been that many combatants left.

She looked at her notes. Coming up, on her right, was the big meeting room for the head honchos. Just down the hall was a analytics room (whatever), and that had the access point. This was the final stretch; the emergency lights weren't even on in this hall. Ahead, a shaft of pale light crossed the way, out an open door (the meeting room) and onto the wall. It was sunlight from outside, the little bit of it that pierced the gray clouds. Her gun was up as she neared the open door. A booted leg stuck out of it into the hall. It what was keeping the door open a crack. She pressed herself against the wall, and peered into the room.

The meeting room had large windows (made of who knows what, because from the outside the whole building looked like a long, white box with no windows, painted white as described), and she could see that a fluffy snow was beginning to fall. There was a very long table in the room, surrounded by many chairs, almost all of them flipped and overturned. In one of them, sat a girl with silver hair, her head in her hands, staring down at the table. She was groaning. It was soft, but the girl was groaning, even breathing in labored way. In pain. Very much in serious pain.

She was the only person alive in the room.

Blake backed away from the door and continued down the hallway quietly. The other door, the one leading to the access point, had its knob blasted away, maybe by a shaped charge. Blake pushed the ruined door shut behind her, where it swing limply, utterly useless. She pored over her Scroll, finding a list of steps. She took out the stick drive she was to upload, and, with one eye on what she was doing, the other on her Scroll, began fiddling with a control panel, looking for a port. The only light on this room came from the screens, and it was a muted purple, some kind of screen saver with blobs floating back and forth. Reaching under a desk, there was a metallic snap. Blake sighed, and began to type something into the computer. After a few moments, one finger floated over the Enter key. She stayed like this for a few seconds. She looked like she was going to look over her shoulder. But she didn't. After a head shake, she hit the key and promptly stood up, making for the door quickly, without looking back.

The groaning was now a bit louder in the hall. She stepped over the people laying out here as carefully as her speed for the exit would allow. She passed in front of the cracked open conference room door, and paused. She never stopped looking forward, though her eyes did wander to her left. Another head shake and she kept on going.

"H-hey… hey…"

One foot in front of the other. She was done. The program was working its way in, _had_ worked its way in. It was over.

"H-hey!"

Blake stopped, her shoulders stooped. Her eyes stung with something, and her vision was a little blurry, like looking through water. No one moved for a few minutes. It was Blake who moved first.

She very slowly turned around.

Nicky smiled. She spoke very softly; the sound of falling snow would have covered it up. "Salutations." She turned on her heel and walked back into the boardroom. Blake kept the sights up, and began to back away. The timid noise of her footsteps must have been loud enough for Nicky to hear, "You know, whenever _I_ went after a mark, I made sure she was dead. Everytime. I'm pretty sure that's what a silent professional would do. Unless you aren't too keen on your handiwork. Or if you even care."

Blake, after a moment, walked up to the doorway, and started to check her corners. Nicky was sitting at the board's table, facing the door, leaning her back over the edge, driving it into her spine, to the point where she was almost lying on it. It was both non-tactical, and, from how her legs were spread out a bit to keep her standing, uncouth. She laying back so much it was good she wasn't wearing a skirt. Another moment when there was nothing really sexy going on: the robot girl just didn't care anymore. There was no self-delusion in her eyes; she was going to die. Who cares, anymore.

There was a hole wide enough to see straight through Nicky, about the size of a fist, near her stomach. There were tears and smaller holes all through the rest of her body.

Blake couldn't figure out what the girl was doing by rubbing her back on the edge of the table, until a large crack resounded. Nicky sighed and said she felt much better now; she turned and sat on the table, kicking her legs. "If you're going to shoot, shoot. Don't just stare at me though. It's creepy. And you should never, ever stick around in the Doorway of Death."

Blake advanced on Nicky, keeping the gunbarrel aimed right on the girl's head. She tried not to look at the mess on the floor, despite how hard it was to keep her footing. A lot were sprawled out beneath her feet. When close to the table, she pulled out Penny's ribbon, and tossed it on the table.

Nicky picked it up, and played her fingers over it. "You know, I pulled this off my own severed head. Pretty trippy."

"...Yeah…"

"I guess I tossed it to you because I wanted someone to know. We… we were pretty lonely."

"...Yeah…"

"It's a helluva life we lead," Nicky said. "We dress up for such ugliness. But I guess it's common courtesy. I don't mind being killed someone wearing that outfit. It looks very nice on you. You still wear too many clothes for a normal person, but I guess I do too. I guess we both look weird. My outfit got ruined though. Look at it. My father made it for me. You can tell when you compare me to everyone else, the other hunters. They all look sleek, dangerous, and sexy. I had overalls. Not even remotely the same. Still stylish, but the product of a man who was trying to dress his daughter. Different mindset, I guess. I never got to dress myself. I remember wanting to try. But I never got to. I don't really want to now, either. There isn't any point, really. I mean, I guess there is. The courtesy of giving the people we kill something nice to look at, right before they die. It would be horrible to be killed by somebody with stains on their teeth, dirty clothes, and matted hair. It would be even more demeaning than usual. More vulgar. That is something that should be avoided, maybe. Because the situation is already bad enough.

"When you kill someone, you reduce them to meat. Or, I guess I could say in my case, parts, but, when you think about it, people are just parts, too. Though people don't like to think of that. But, the truth is, killing them is like killing a running car, or lawn mower. It keeps running as you damage it, because it's meant to keep running. It wants to keep running. You just keep smashing it until everything vital leaks out, or the internal mechanisms can't function anymore. That's what happens when you stab somebody, or shoot them with a small caliber bullet: they start leaking. Then, they shut off… after a while.

"I can see where the fascination for some people comes in, when it comes to killing. You can feel vindicated. A lot. They were talking, moving, thinking before. But all that can be smashed, cut up, stored in bags, and just left around wherever. It's a crazy feeling of power to do that to someone, make them into nothing. Maybe that's where the real horror lies, with dying. Why funerals are so important, why we want the caskets open, pictures of the dead shown. Without that, it's just meat or broken parts getting shoved into the ground. It's the last thing remembered, and that sticks with people. So, we try to fight that. So we don't just become another number after we die. Another victim.

"You can take all that away from someone, take away their face, reshape how they are thought of. Leave them as a mess for the cops to pick up, and _they_ do it with indifference, because they see it so often, and _have_ to be indifferent; otherwise, they'll go crazy. It's the only way you can go on.

"It's like being sick, maybe, wearing no makeup, and just being a mess, and how that can affect what people think of you. But worse, of course. I remember looking up at all those people when I died, and being sad, confused, and embarrassed. I didn't want them to look at me like that. I thought, 'Don't look at me,' and was so sad. I stopped having a face then. I was the girl who died.

"I don't want to be a number, Blake. I really don't want to be another number that died that day.

"When you kill someone, you take away everything from them. You are literally taking their life. I don't mean in stealing their vitality. Their name is now tied to _you_ , forever; they are now one of the people you killed. You own them. Forever. You two will never be separated. When talk about one, you have to talk about the other eventually. Everyone I've killed is mine. Our names are forever linked. It's an abhorrent thing to do to people. And that's why I did it.

"I'm not the first person to think this. I'm very sure Adam and many of the White Fang did it because it was terrible… terrible… terrible… haHahahahaHah… What did you stick in the serrrrrverrrrr? Hm? Whatever. It's not like it matters. I'm not even sure why yooooouuu did it, with me beeeeeeeing how I am right now. I guess it will will maaake it so my brain case can't be harvested again. All blank, now. Oh well. I think there was some old sci-fi movie that did this same thing. I forget the name. You know the one?"

"Yeah."

"You know the name?"

"No. I've never seen it."

"Neither have I. Oh well. But, like I would have seen it anyway. I wouldn't be allowed to. I still saw _some_ movies when I was growing up. If you could call it, what I did, growing up. What is childhood when it comes to me. Some of the techs that watched over me talked about that movie, though. The sci-fi one. I wish I'd never heard of it. If machines can dream, they can have nightmares. Maybe it's best if we never could. Too late, now. And our nightmares are going to be much different than yours."

"I had a great-uncle that had dementia."

"Oh, really? That's very sad."

"It was. My father would visit him and hold his hand, but the great-uncle never recognized him. I guess you can say that even though I saw the body living in the wheelchair, I never met the man, myself."

"But you would do it to me."

"I am now only just realising what I've done."

"You seem awfully calm about it."

"I can't afford to have my hands shake right now."

"Put the gun down. I've already lost."

"Which means you don't care anymore. You've got nothing to lose."

"Then shoot already. Are you really going to sit there like that and watch me? It's Vytal all over again. Be happy you never get to die twice. You can sit. I don't care. Killing you makes no difference. I never would have won, anyway."

"It was a woman called Cinder, working for someone called Salem that killed you. They have a lacky, Emerald, who causes hallucinations. She did something to Pyrrha Nikos, we think. She was disgusted with herself, horrified, Pyrrha was. I was told this after I was injured during the Battle."

"Yeah, I heard there was a Battle. I heard the White Fang and Atlas were involved."

"Cinder and the Fang hacked the Atlas robots to attack innocents. We fought all them off, but Grimm were also released into the city. Ruby… Ruby went to go help Pyrrha… yes, she killed you, but it was because… whatever. You don't have to listen. Ruby tried to stop it, though, stop Emerald."

"So you kill my mind and then tell me that my real murderers got away, that I went after the wrong people."

"...yes. Pyrrha was killed. Yang Xiao Long's arm was severed. I was almost stabbed through the heart. We tried to fight them, Penny. We tried."

"Well."

"... I'm sorry."

"How did you find all this out?"

"Mercury, Emerald's cohort, was spotted at the School… that's the guy Yang shot in the leg, then was subsequently disqualified. Turns out he doesn't even have legs. Him and Emerald had rap sheets. It was insane that was hidden from us. Actually, it looks like they even might have pulled off a hit in the City; the type of bullet holes left behind at a scene matches their weapon types. Their leader was some girl called Cinder Fall… we don't know much about her. After the Battle, the largest investigation in the history of Vale was opened up. Almost a thousand people working on it. And we barely found anything out. Except what Emerald could do with her Semblance. Outside of Cinder Fall's name, all we found out there were hints about Emerald. Nothing… we found nothing. The city lost its friggin' mind over that. And the little we learned didn't do much good; Pyrrha Nikos was still dead, you were still dead, and even though Yang was cleared of wrongdoing, it wasn't like she could go back and compete. Ozpin is dead, too. They even killed Ozpin."

"I heard rumors, but… Nikos is dead, then."

"...yeah…"

"I heard she might only be missing. Many people are refusing to believe someone so strong was killed. From what I understand, no body was found, but of course, being a huntress… well… when you… die…"

"That Cinder Fall person killed her. That's what Qrow-Ruby's uncle-said. He is the only witness though. Outside Ruby… who… was in coma, last I heard."

"...a coma?"

"...yeah."

"...Is she gonna make it?"

"Probably."

A sigh. "Well.

That's that, then."

"That's… that."

"I feel bad for Ruby. I didn't see her at all, after it happened. Everyone's face sort of blended together. It was all you fleshbags, with me alone on the stage, right then. It still kinda is.

"I resent having my emotions. I started to right then, cut apart and on the floor like that. Whenever I felt down, or sad, back in the day, someone or something would come along and cheer me up.

"Up, up, upupupupupup. Up.

"It was always something temporary, feeling bad I figured it really couldn't get that terrible. I remember taking out the White Fang at the docks. I was so happy. I had friends, and I could help them. And then, I had to leave, and I was _so_ sad. But there was always something fun to do back home. I really wanted to be back at Beacon, but I knew if I hung in there, I could, one day, make it back to see my friends again.

"Lying there cut up was the first _real_ jolt of emotion I had. Everything else was _nothing_ compared to that. That's when I realized what emotions were. And I hated them. Why would you make someone able to feel _that?_ You children of flesh have no choice, but why in the _hell_ would you make _me_ feel like that? You children of flesh have no choice, but why in the _hell_ would you make _me_ feel like that? You children of flesh have no choice, but why in the _hell_ would you make _me_ feel like that? What was the point? And then expect _me_ to _fight_ for all _you_ ; _you_ were going to spare _yourselves_ the fear, the hate, the pain, and make _me_ do it. What the hell is wrong with you? And even if I didn't come around, wasn't created to do it for you, the Schools were going to make a small subset of the children do it. So they could, what, look at HD porn on their Scrolls all day? Seriously? You can go ahead and say I am being hyperbolic, but almost all the global comms network was was porn. I'm serious. Porn and gossip. You never interfaced with it the way I have.

"And if not that, it's people shying away from the news, decrying it as fake, or not paying attention to it because they wanted to paint their nails and talk about boys. Boys. Booooooys. It not a thing I like much. It's so stupid and sad. Like, we train real hard so we can go do the fighting and then it's for what? What the hello are we even fighting for?

"Each has own reasons, and all dumb. I wanted to be a person, but what a person does is make others fight for them. And make fake people to do fighting. Is there some sort of enlightenment that I'm missing? Some great leap in thought that is in jeopardy? Maybe the Grimm exist because whatever gods there are want you dead. Maybe the whole damn world hates you. What right do you have to rebel?

"I don't know why anything is."

"Nobody does. Who do you think you are? It was sad what happened to you, but as it was pointed out to me, _you_ weren't the only person there. Pyrrha tried to avenge you, and she was fu… she was killed for it. So many people died, and it wasn't fair, and maybe there is nothing really worth looking forward to, but I believe there are things right now we can have, and it can get better."

"Liiiiike what?! What the hell do _I_ have to look forward too?! Pity?! From a scaredy cat. Joy. Pity is a thing people love to give away, but nobody wants to receive. I wanna point out thaaat I kiiillled a lotta of the people people that broke into here myselfs. I sought out a revenge from the people that used me, and left a mark. I came back from the goddamn dead…"

"So have I. The body doesn't always have to die. There are more important things that can, inside you."

"You didn't travel nearly as far as I did."

"Don't flatter yourself. You know what Ruby told me the first day I met her? After she exploded?"

"She… she what now?"

"She sneezed and exploded Weiss. It's about as stupid as it sounds. It was real weird walking up to, and I just sort of ignored it. First day of School, and this is what I see of my peers. I was dealing with two children who had never ripped off a train. Robbed a train. It was so surreal.

"But later that night, Yang… Yang dragged Ruby over to talk to me, and… I tried to ignore them. I was reading this one book, and I really wanted to get through it again. It was the only thing that was _centering_ me among those people. But this little girl just kept talking to me, and talking to me, and she wouldn't go away. Exactly like how _you_ were with her. Was a bit of an eye opener for the kid, the day she met you. I guess it's why you turned out this way, whether you are Penny or Nicky: you had a kid's idea of the world. Sometimes that can help. But most times, no.

"Ruby kept trying to talk to me, about why she wanted to be a huntress, and it was just, well, sick. Really sick. Like, my stomach actually was nauseous. You know what she wanted? She wanted to be a fairy-tale hero. I told her that the real world wasn't a fairy-tale, that it was a mean place, and she looked right at me and said, 'Isn't that why we are here?'

"I never forgot that. It's one of the lamest things anyone's ever said to me, but yeah, it _was_ why we were there. I wasn't any different from them. My fairy-tale? Equality. That the White Fang were going to get things done, and quick, and we would stop all the racism. It doesn't work like that.

"I remember hearing about this one experiment with a little kid, like, a toddler, where they would let a little white mouse in the room with him, and whenever the kid would touch the mouse they would play the sound of smashing cymbals. They kept doing it to the toddler, over and over, making him scared, and then, they would let the mouse into the room with him and play no noise. You know what happened? The kid was _terrified_ of the mouse. And it stuck with the kid. Later in life, he wouldn't even put on a white sweater.

"Now apply that experiment to groups of collectives memories, of people. You can't, just, _magic_ the racism away, or think people are going to forget how you oppressed their people, and for generations.

"People remember the awful easier than the good. It's just survival instinct. Back when all living creatures were feral, we didn't get the luxury of happiness. Civilisation changed that. Regardless, the instinct to remember pain above all is still there. Wounds take forever to heal, especially the scars between the Humans and the Fuanus. And the Living and the Machines. But I thought… was egotistical enough, to think that we in the White… that _I_ was going to be one of the people who fixed things through the White Fang. But people don't work like that. You need patience. Ruby taught me that I was even more of a child than she was. Weiss let me know that people in Atlas feel the way I do. And I still don't know what I am going to do with all this new knowledge, but I've been running from it, and I'm tired of running. Maybe I can do something. Maybe I can't. I don't know. I'm only now starting to realise what I have been doing since the Fall."

"This doesn't help me."

"It doesn't help anybody, really. It just sort of is. If the gods can hate me, shun me, ignore me, not give me any answers, then they can do the same to you. So the worst thing, the worst sin anyone can do, is lash out at each other. Because we're all screwed. Why destroy one another. That's… horrible, to do."

"Then it's all pointless."

"Maybe, in a cosmic sense, but I put my own point on things. The hell else can I do."

"You really are spurning the gods, then."

"Maybe. I guess I just don't care."

"My creators are living. I wonder if this makes a difference between me and you.

"But I guess somebody needs to die so society can just screw off and do whatever. I guess if I wasn't doing this… I don't know what I'd be doing. I'm stiiiiiiilllllll mad, though."

"I can't say anything to that."

"We really haven't saaaaiiid anythiiiing."

"We're a couple of kids who kill for a living. Who the hell would and should listen to us. There is not a lot to be said of a person who makes their living with a goddamn gun."

"But you taaaake it with you all the tiiiime. It's like a part of youuu. Do you even have right to say that, to criticiiiiize? Super cereal here. Like, you fight and steal and bomb and stuff. Like. You sit there with it in your haaaaaaaaaaandsssss. Can you even let it goooo? What are you without it? My weapons are part of my body, tied to me.

"What chance did I even have.

"I don't even know what we are saying, anymore. This is ugly. I don't like ugly. I don't know what I ever really wanted. I was just given life, and I took it for granted that it was good. And it got me here. Did I… was I ever happy? I guess. I guess it is a disservice to just push those memories aside. But I guess I ultimately have the decision on whether or not the memories are worth it. Maybe I really don't. I guess… I guess my feelings dictate that.

"I miss being alive. It was fun. I guess I can just accept that I got to have the fun that I did. But… I'm worried that justifies throwing lives away.

"I don't knooooow if I should have kiiiiiiiiilled those people.

"I don't think I'll get to figure it out, either.

"It's always snowing here. It's so pretty. But I miss Beacon. I wonder what the desert is like. But it's so briiiight here." Nicky was at the window now, resting one of her cheeks on it. "The way I feel cold is different than how you feel it, I think. I don't know. It feels kinda nice, now. Though.

"I guess people can be good. But they caaan be so, soooo baaaaaad. But I guess fighting worth it. But me? I dunno. I had to. Choice? Noooooooo… Someone has to do this, though? Hm...

"It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there.

It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there.

It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there.

It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there.

It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there.

It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there.

It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there.

It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there. It's so pretty out there."

Blake was over to the kneeling Nicky in a few steps. The pale girl was pressing her face hard against the glass, but there was no breath to fog it. Blake but the barrel of the Gambol Shroud so it was touching the base of her skull, the top of the spine.

Some people don't get open casket funerals.

\ \ \ / / /

"You know, you are pretty good at what you do. You would make a great asset. You should stick around. Learn a little. Grow. Start a real career. You could make it in this world."

"I'm poor in some ways and rich in others. There's more than one kind of wealth."

"Eh… what?"

"I'm saying no to you, Baron."

"Blake…"

"No. I have things to do. I have to figure out how I'm going to do them."

"So… you're just going to leave, then."

"I'm going to where I think I can make a difference."

"Where is that?"

"I'll figure it out when I get back to Vale."

And that was that. She did go to Bridget, and say goodbye. Bridget didn't know why Blake just wanted to run off, but Blake told her that she was running _to_ something for once. She wasn't going to smash her problems away anymore.

As she slept on the journey back to Vale, she would see Penny in her dreams. And Adam.

When she woke, she was quiet and in thought. A part of her didn't want to take the money from Bartlett, for completing the job. But she needed to get back to Vale.

Or did she?

She moped around her old apartment for a week, coasting by on her money (her landlord exclaiming, "Miss Yukamoto! Where have you been?"). She went to the Wall of the Lost near the School, and tacked up a paper with Wolfe's name on it. She cried at Pyrrha's portrait. She helped out at a homeless shelter, and watched a Faunus protest against a renewed wave of discrimination in the wake of the Fall.

One part of her said that this is where she needed to be. This city, where none of her friends were, where she could do nothing to help with the EZ, and the White Fang were maybe hiding in the shadows.

She didn't know what to do. She spent a lot of her days walking around before coming home and then pacing the apartment. She cleaned the room, bought food, and wandered around. Sun spotted her around this time, and tried to figure out a way to approach her. He watched her instead, worried about the look on her face. He felt like a stalker, but he didn't know what to do, either. Who would. In that city, in that bleakness.

She didn't want to carry the Gambol, but some days she would. She thought about hunting Grimm for money, and then, suddenly, she wanted to go home. It was just a weird feeling in her guts. She wanted out. She wanted out _now._ She wanted to talk with her parents, face their possible wrath, and tell them they were right. She was afraid, but it didn't damper this growing feeling.

There still wasn't any air travel, so she had to charter a passage by boat. How romantic, how olden. How slow. The days on the vessel were tortuous. There was nothing to do but think. She would stand on the deck, right by the railing, as she was right now, being watched by someone too scared to talk to her, and she is taking the sword off her back, her eyes looking between the weapon and the water, there is some kind of look on her face; she raises her arm and

Story End

"You honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Few people ever cried more than once there, and if you'd used that up, you laughed; the young ones were so innocent and violent, so sweet and so brutal, beautiful killers."

Michael Herr, _Dispatches_ (New York: Vintage Books, 1991) Kindle Edition & First Vintage International Edition, pp. 234-235

Originally published, hardcover, by Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York, 1977

There's a song by Ambulette called Fall that I like.

I'd wait a good minute before reading this next part. Like, even a day if you gotta.

A note from the author

Oh, hey there. I didn't see you come in. Stay a while, and listen. Take your shoes off, sit by the fire. Have I showed my exotic collection of trinkets? Brandy, perhaps? It's vintage!

Okay, then.

Seriously, there are 2 things that annoy me:

Someone who loves the smell of their own farts.

A big author note or something at the end of a work that destroys the mood.

Like, imagine the end of… I don't know, _Schindler's List._ After the final scene, the cast and crew comes out and says, "Hey, we couldn't have done this without _you!_ Like, comment, and subscribe!" And then they point at the f-ing camera. While winking.

Yeah.

And this also makes me an ass for thinking anyone is in some kind of spell of emotion after reading my words. That I made them feel things. Talk about egotistical. I pride myself on being the kind of person who doesn't like the smell of their own farts.

I mean, I don't _mind_ the smell of my own farts. But that's totally different.

Right?

However, I do want to shatter the mood in order to shout out to anyone following or fav-ing this story. I find it kind of amusing anyone actually likes it. Even I really don't like it (used up a lot of free time with this, a weekend or two… yeah, totally worth it for… sigh… _fanfiction_ ), but who the hell am I? Some jerk-off who thinks they're clever. Screw me. If you liked it, you liked it. If you didn't, you didn't. My opinion doesn't matter. I forget who said it, but some dude smarter than me pointed out that whenever you release a work it no longer belongs to you, it belongs to whoever experiences it. They can make up their own mind about it.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

That doesn't really apply to what I'm talking about... but that quote is awesome. Way better than the more famous one about being a servant and such.

I'm being pedantic on purpose; I'm fairly certain me showing off what I know is actually showing off how _little_ I do know. Hence, brandishing it about. Not being some mystery person. But that also shows I'm not entirely talking out my ass. Just mostly. Slipshod work all around, this story.

Anyway.

Cool that you stuck around. Hopefully it wasn't a waste of time.

Because I don't even _know_ how this story became _novel_ -length. That wasn't supposed to happen. 30k words tops was the idea.

Remember to make an outline, kids.

Seriously.

Make one.

So, goodbye. Thanks for sticking it out. Sorry for the length. Sorry for butchering cannon (I'm fairly certain I spelled Pyrrha's name right, I had to keep checking)… but I mainly wanted to make a point. Less a point, really; more hammer people with this different view on how such subject material is supposed to be handled, and how certain actions and types of behavior are coming off as _really_ disrespectful to me. I am clearly displeased. You don't have to be displeased along with me; you can still like what you like. But it would be cool of you kept some of this in the back of your head. Thanks for hearing me out.

Now I can go back to writing stuff with swearing.

Thank God.

It's been so goddamn hard holding back, you know.

And what is with showing people getting their arms cut off, lying in pools of blood, getting stabbed, shot, and traumatized, but if you call someone a c*nt everyone goes apesh*t?

God help you if someone sees a nipple.

Man, I like to ramble off-topic. It's kinda cathartic, though, now that the story is done.

I also want to apologize for me being myself. That's actually only half a joke. I've met people that have met me, and they have let me know what it's like to meet me and try to hold a conversation with that person.

Yes, you were supposed to notice if I wrote apologise, etc., or not throughout the story.

God bless us, every one.

Have a nice day.

;-D


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